Paleo Paluza

Much has been going on lately in my little paleocentric world. Yesterday I had my lab final for paleomammology. It went ok, but definately could have been better. This afternoon, I had a chat with Rick Otto of the Ashfall Site in Nebraska about a job. It was supposed to be an interview but he pretty much told me what I'd have to do and offered me the job. Finally I have a little bit of certainty about what I'll be doing this summer. If I don't get offered the collections assistantship here at the U of A, then I'm going to Nebraska. For those of you who don't know, Nebraska is on the edge of the corn belt, just south of South Dakota and north of Kansas. Not a whole lot of anything out there (four hundred people in the town that I'd be working in) but at least there's a job.
Also, if you haven't heard yet, a recent discovery of an oviraptorasaur with eggs in its abdomen is creating quite a stir. If this had been found ten years ago, then it would have been hailed as 'proof' that it's name (which means egg stealer) was justified. But then, ten years ago, we hadn't found an oviraptor embryo inside that variety of egg. What this new discovery does confirm instead is that dinosaurs layed two eggs at a time. This had been strongly suspected before because of the arrangement of theropod eggs in pairs within the nest, but this is even stronger evidence. Birds lay one egg at a time and only have one ovary. Where the debate should lie now is whether the eggs were in the same ovary or in separate ones. Some people have suggested that the same ovary produced two eggs which were layed one right after the other. Others have said that its two eggs that were in separate ovaries. The new specimen shows two eggs side by side, which suggests the two ovary hypothesis to me. Naturally though, some people have proposed in the past that the one ovary hypothesis would work if the two eggs were side by side within the ovary and layed at exactly the same time. This wouldn't work however because the shell gland would cement the two eggs together if they were in the uterus at the same time. Not to mention the discomfort associated with laying two eggs instead of one at a time.