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Report: U.S. Economic Freedom Continues Fall; Global Average Declines

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date September 20, 2011

Levels of economic freedom have decreased around the globe, according to a new report released today by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank.

Economic Freedom of the World: 2011 Annual Report shows that the average economic freedom score fell to 6.64 in 2009, the lowest in nearly three decades, from 6.67 in 2008.

The United States in particular dropped from No. 6 to No. 10 in the ranking.

“The big news this year is that economic freedom in the United States continues to fall,” said SMU economist Robert A. Lawson, an author on the research who has helped compile the annual report since 1997. “For the last decade the United States’ rating has been falling. On our 0-to-10 scale, the U.S. rating has fallen by about a point. This is a big change. In fact for the first time ever Canada ranks higher than the United States.”

The global average also is falling, Lawson said. For the past two years it’s fallen after rising for the last 20 to 30 years, he said.

“This is really important because all of the research that we have done and that others have done tells us one thing: Economic freedom really matters,” Lawson said.

To do well on the index, a country’s taxes must be low, regulations moderate, property rights secure and money sound, with free trade domestically and abroad.

“In response to the American and European debt crises, governments around the world are embracing perverse regulations and this has huge, negative implications for economic freedom and financial recovery,” said Fred McMahon, Fraser Institute vice-president of international policy research.

Hong Kong again ranked number one for economic freedom, followed by Singapore and New Zealand, Switzerland, and Australia.

The United States experienced one of the largest drops in economic freedom, falling to 10th place overall from sixth in 2010. Much of this decline is a result of higher spending and borrowing on the part of the U.S. government, and lower scores for legal structure and property rights, the authors said.

Zimbabwe once again received the worst score among the 141 jurisdictions included in the study, followed by Myanmar, Venezuela and Angola.

“The link between economic freedom and prosperity is undeniable: the countries that score highly in terms of economic freedom also offer their people the best quality of life,” McMahon said.

“The political uprisings sweeping across the Arab World are the result of people wanting the outcomes of economic freedom — prosperity, job growth, political freedoms and poverty reduction,” he said.

The annual peer-reviewed Economic Freedom of the World report is produced by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank, in cooperation with independent institutes in 85 nations and territories.

In addition to Lawson, other authors are James Gwartney, Gus A. Stavros Eminent Scholar Chair at Florida State University; and Joshua Hall, Beloit College.

The report uses 42 different measures to create an index ranking of 141 countries around the world based on policies that encourage economic freedom. The cornerstones of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete and security of private property. Economic freedom is measured in five different areas: (1) size of government, (2) legal structure and security of property rights, (3) access to sound money, (4) freedom to trade internationally, and (5) regulation of credit, labor and business.

Research shows that individuals living in countries with high levels of economic freedom enjoy higher levels of prosperity, greater individual freedoms and longer life spans.

International Rankings
Hong Kong offers the highest level of economic freedom worldwide, with a score of 9.01 out of 10. The other top scorers are Singapore (8.68), New Zealand (8.20), Switzerland (8.03), Australia (7.98), Canada (7.81), Chile (7.77), the United Kingdom (7.71), Mauritius (7.67) and the United States (7.60).

The rankings and scores of other large economies include: Germany, 21st (7.45); Japan, 22nd (7.44); France, 42nd (7.16); Italy, 70th (6.81); Mexico, 75th (6.74); Russia, 81st (6.55); China, 92nd (6.43); India, 94th (6.40); and Brazil, 102nd (6.19).

Zimbabwe maintains the lowest level of economic freedom among the 141 jurisdictions measured. Myanmar, Venezuela, Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo round out the bottom five nations.

Several countries have substantially increased their economic freedom scores since 1990. Uganda saw the biggest improvement, climbing to 7.10 this year from 3.00 in 1990, followed by Zambia, which rose to 7.35 from 3.52; Nicaragua, which jumped to 6.76 from 2.96; Albania, which climbed to 7.54 from 4.24; and Peru, which increased to 7.29 from 4.13.

Over the same period, economic freedom has steadily regressed in Venezuela, whose score fell to 4.23 from 5.45; Zimbabwe, which dropped to 4.06 from 5.05; the United States, which slipped to 7.58 from 8.43; and Malaysia, which fell to 6.68 from 7.49.
The report notes that among the highest-ranked countries, the average income of the poorest 10 per cent of people was $8,735 (in constant 2005 international dollars), compared to a meagre $1,061 for those living in the least economically free countries.

On average, the poorest 10 per cent of people in the most economically free countries are nearly twice as rich as the average population of the least economically free nations.

About the Economic Freedom Index
Economic Freedom of the World measures the degree to which the policies and institutions of countries are supportive of economic freedom.

This year’s publication ranks 141 nations representing 95 percent of the world’s population for 2009, the most recent year for which data is available. The report also updates data in earlier reports in instances where data have been revised.

For more information on the Economic Freedom Network, data sets, and previous Economic Freedom of the World reports, visit www.freetheworld.com

SMU’s Lawson is in the Cox School of Business as the Jerome M. Fullinwider Chair in Economic Freedom, O’Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom. — Fraser Institute and Southern Methodist University.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Cox School of Business, Robert A. Lawson, Southern Methodist University

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Out-of-the-blue panic attacks aren’t without warning; data show subtle changes before patients’ aware of attack

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date July 26, 2011

Panic attacks that seem to strike sufferers out-of-the-blue are not without warning after all, according to new research.

A study based on 24-hour monitoring of panic sufferers while they went about their daily activities captured panic attacks as they happened and discovered waves of significant physiological instability for at least 60 minutes before patients’ awareness of the panic attacks, said psychologist Alicia E. Meuret at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

In a rare study in which patients were monitored around-the-clock, portable recorders captured changes in respiration, heart rate and other bodily functions, said Meuret, lead researcher on the study.

The new findings suggest sufferers of panic attacks may be highly sensitive to — but unaware of — an accumulating pattern of subtle physiological instabilities that occur before an attack, Meuret said.

Monitoring data also showed patients were hyperventilating on a chronic basis.

Simulated panic sufferer and monitoring equipment. (Photo: SMU)

“The results were just amazing,” Meuret said. “We found that in this hour preceding naturally occurring panic attacks, there was a lot of physiological instability. These significant physiological instabilities were not present during other times when the patient wasn’t about to have a panic attack.”

It is notable that patients reported the attacks as unexpected, lacking awareness of either the coming attack or their changing physiology.

“The changes don’t seem to enter the patient’s awareness,” Meuret said. “What they report is what happens at the end of the 60 minutes — that they’re having an out-of-the blue panic attack with a lot of intense physical sensations. We had expected the majority of the physiological activation would occur during and following the onset of the panic attack. But what we actually found was very little additional physiological change at that time.”

Unexpected attacks have been a mystery; little research to explain them
The diagnostic standard for psychological disorders, the DSM-IV, defines panic attacks as either expected or unexpected.

Those that are expected, or cued, occur when a patient feels an attack is likely, such as in closed spaces, while driving or in a crowded place.

“But in an unexpected panic attack, the patient reports the attack to occur out-of-the-blue,” Meuret said. “They would say they were sitting watching TV when they were suddenly hit by a rush of symptoms, and there wasn’t anything that made it predictable.”

To sufferers and researchers alike, the attacks are a mystery.

Change-point analysis uncovered physiological instabilities one hour before attacks
Meuret and her colleagues discovered the significant physiological instabilities using change-point analysis, a statistical method that searches for points when changes occur in a “process” over time.

“This analysis allowed us to search through patients’ physiological data recorded in the hour before the onset of their panic attacks to determine if there were points at which the signals changed significantly,” said psychologist David Rosenfield of SMU, lead statistician on the project.

The study is significant not only for panic disorder, but also for other medical problems where symptoms and events have seemingly “out-of-the blue” onsets, such as seizures, strokes and even manic episodes.

“I think this method and study will ultimately help detect what’s going on before these unexpected events and help determine how to prevent them,” Meuret said. “If we know what’s happening before the event, it’s easier to treat it.”

Meuret, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology, reported the results in the journal Biological Psychiatry in the article “Do Unexpected Panic Attacks Occur Spontaneously?” Rosenfield is an associate professor in SMU’s Department of Psychology.

A multi-disciplinary collaboration, other authors on the study were psychologist Thomas Ritz, SMU Department of Psychology; psychologist Frank H. Wilhelm, University of Salzburg, Austria; electrical engineer Enlu Zhou, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and psychologist Ansgar Conrad and psychiatrist Walton T. Roth, both of Stanford University.

Meuret discusses the research in an SMU Research youtube video.

Subtle physical changes impact panic sufferers more severely
People with panic disorder probably won’t be surprised by the results, Meuret said.

By definition, the majority of the 13 symptoms of panic attack are physiological: shortness of breath, heart racing, dizziness, chest pain, sweating, hot flashes, trembling, choking, nausea and numbness. Only three are psychological: feeling of unreality, fear of losing control and fear of dying.

“Most patients obviously feel that there must be something going on physically,” Meuret said. “They worry they’re having a heart attack, suffocating or going to pass out. Our data doesn’t indicate there’s something inherently wrong with them physically, neither when they are at rest nor during panic. The fluctuations that we discovered are not extreme; they are subtle. But they seem to build up and may result in a notion that something catastrophic is going on.”

Notably, the researchers found that patients’ carbon dioxide, or C02, levels were in an abnormally low range, indicating the patients were chronically hyperventilating. These levels rose significantly shortly before panic onset and correlated with reports of anxiety, fear of dying and chest pain.

“It has been speculated, but never verified with data recordings in daily life, that increases in CO2 cause feelings of suffocation and can be panic triggers,” Meuret said.

Fanny pack monitor tracked physiological changes before, during and after attacks
To capture the physiological data, 43 patients wore the monitoring devices for 24 hours on two separate occasions. The researchers collected 1,960 hours of ambulatory monitoring data, including 13 unexpected panic attacks.

Participants, all of whom suffer from panic disorder, were each outfitted with an array of electrodes and sensors attached to various parts of their bodies.

The ambulatory monitoring device was toted in a small waist pack the patients wore. Also included was a portable capnometer to measure CO2 collected from exhaled breath. The physiological responses were recorded continuously as digital data in a time series.

Each monitoring pack included a “panic button.” Patients were instructed to press the button if they had an attack and to write down their symptoms. By triggering the panic button, patients inserted a marker into the time-series data, marking the moment the attack began.

The sensors measured eight physiological indices, including changes in respiration, such as how deep, fast or irregular people were breathing; cardiac activity; and evidence of sweating.

Data analysis found strikingly significant changes in the hour before attacks
From the nearly 2,000 hours of data, the change-point analysis program allowed the researchers to slice out 70-minute periods around each of the 13 panic attacks — from one hour before onset until 10 minutes after the attacks began.

For each index, the program checked for any significant change in the signal that remained stable over a specified period of time.

Those results were collapsed across all 13 panic attacks, with minute-by-minute averages. The information was then compared to a 70-minute control period randomly chosen during non-panic periods.

“We found 15 subtle but significant changes an hour before the onset of the panic attacks that followed a logical physiological pattern. These weren’t present during the non-panic period,” Meuret said.

“Why they occurred, we don’t know. We also can’t say necessarily they were causal for the panic attacks. But the changes were strikingly and significantly different to what was observed in the non-panic control period,” she said.

Findings prompt look at “panic” definition and treatment
The study’s results invite a reconsideration of the DSM diagnostic definition that separates “expected” from “unexpected” attacks, Meuret said.

Also, the study might explain why medication or interventions aimed at normalizing respiration for treating panic are effective, she said. Medication generally buffers arousal, keeping it low and regular, thereby preventing unexpected panic attacks.

For psychological treatments such as Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), the results are more challenging. CBT requires a patient to focus on examining thoughts to prevent an attack.

“But a patient can’t work on something they don’t know is going to happen,” Meuret said.

New methodology can be universalized to other unexpected medical problems
The study’s use of change-point analysis can be applied to other medical issues. Traditional statistics are ineffective at analyzing such data, Meuret said, because they look only at level differences at pre-determined times and won’t find a signal for an unknown point.

“This study is a step toward more understanding and hopefully opening more doors for research on medical events that are difficult to predict. The hope is that we can then translate these findings into new therapies,” she said.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Beth and Russell Siegelman Foundation. — Margaret Allen

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

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New Texas Native: 96-million-year-old crocodile Terminonaris makes its first appearance in Texas, switches origins

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date July 13, 2011

Rare find alters origins and distribution of Terminonaris; first home was Texas and North America — not Europe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHS6vE4o3XY

Making its first appearance in Texas, a prehistoric crocodile thought to have originated in Europe now appears to have been a native of the Lone Star State.

The switch in origins for the genus known as Terminonaris is based on the identification of a well-preserved, narrow fossil snout that was discovered along the shoreline of a lake near Dallas.

The 96-million-year-old fossil from Texas is the oldest prehistoric crocodile of its kind in the world, according to paleontologist Thomas L. Adams at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, who identified the reptile.

A distant cousin of modern crocodiles and alligators, Terminonaris was similar to the modern-day Indian gharial, only much larger.

“With the recognition of Terminonaris here in Texas, this actually changes a lot about what we thought we knew about this group,” Adams said.

“Now we know the group had a wider distribution range, and that it’s much older. It represents a unique find for Texas. This is the first occurrence of Terminonaris in Texas. It’s also the oldest occurrence of Terminonaris in the world, and it’s also the southernmost occurrence of Terminonaris anywhere.”

There are six other known Terminonaris fossil specimens: five from North America and one from Europe. The European specimen, from Germany, previously was thought to be the oldest. Scientists had concluded that Terminonaris originated in Europe and then traversed the Atlantic and dispersed throughout North America.

“Now we know Terminonaris most likely originated here in Texas and dispersed northward,” said Adams, a doctoral candidate in SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at SMU.

Big Texas crocodile swam the shores of North America’s prehistoric seaway
Adams identified the reptile primarily from its long snout, which measures more than 2 feet long and 7 inches wide, or 62 centimeters. With a snout that long, Adams estimates the head would have been about one meter long.

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“Based on Nile crocodiles and the Indian gharial, which are both large crocodiles, a regression analysis indicates this Terminonaris probably would have been 23 to 25 feet long,” said Adams. “The largest living crocodile today is the saltwater crocodile, which can reach up to 20 feet in length.”

The Texas Terminonaris was an adult and most likely weighed more than a ton, he said.

Adams identified the fossils in “First Occurrence of the Long-Snouted Crocodyliform Terminonaris (Pholidosauridae) from the Woodbine Formation (Cenomanian) of Texas” in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Prehistoric crocodiles such as Terminonaris together with living crocodiles make up a large group called crocodyliformes. While technically there are differences between living crocodiles and each of the different types of fossil crocodile forms, all of them are often commonly referred to as crocodiles.

Today there are only 23 species of living crocodiles, a small number compared to the many species of mammals, birds, lizards, snakes and fish alive today, Adams said. That’s in stark contrast to prehistoric times.

“In the past, the crocodilian forms were very diverse and they were very successful. There were hundreds of species. Even at the time of the Texas Terminonaris, they were found everywhere,” Adams said.

Texas specimen fills gap, expands age and range of group
Texas Terminonaris was discovered by Dallas-area amateur fossil enthusiast Brian Condon, a rural mail carrier. Condon discovered the heavy pieces of the snout and a vertebrate in 2005 while fossil hunting near his home on Lake Lewisville, a 26,000-acre recreational and fishing lake managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He spotted the first of the pieces along the shoreline. Condon donated the fossils to SMU’s Shuler Museum of Paleontology.

In prehistoric times, Texas Terminonaris would have made its home in a marine setting, along the eastern shore of North America’s vast prehistoric Western Interior Seaway. One hundred million years ago the seaway was a wide, shallow sea that split the North American continent in half from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, said Adams, lead author on the scientific article. The seaway would have covered Lake Lewisville’s location.

In its day-to-day life on the seaway, Terminonaris would have kept close to shore, perhaps in a shallow lagoon or estuary, also venturing into the seaway’s warm salty water to hunt for fish. Like modern crocodiles and alligators, Terminonaris would have eaten whatever it could catch, Adams said. Its long, slender snout was well-suited for devouring fish, small mammals and even small dinosaurs.

North America’s other Terminonaris fossil specimens also were found along the seaway. A Kansas specimen is the youngest, about 91 million years, while those from Saskatchewan, Canada, and Montana are 93 million years old. The German specimen is 94 million years old.

“Terminonaris now here in Texas fills in a gap that we didn’t have information for,” Adams said. “It tells us that as a group, as a genus, they were around much longer, because we extend the age back to 96 million years. The range for them is now expanded, because this is the most southern occurrence of them.”

Well-preserved fossil offers no clues to adult reptile’s cause of death
While the Texas fossil is well-preserved, how the reptile died remains a mystery since only the snout was found.

It probably died in the water or washed out into the open sea, where it floated to the bottom and was buried very quickly, said Adams. The discovery of seven Terminonaris fossil specimens worldwide is significant, he said.

“To be fossilized, it requires they die at the right time in the right place, be buried very quickly, then eventually be exposed and uncovered,” he said. “So the odds of being fossilized and being found as a fossil are very slim.”

Condon found one piece at the water’s edge of Lake Lewisville. The other pieces were further up a bank that sloped toward the shore, Condon said. The pieces had been deposited on the ground by receding water, pulled from the Woodbine Formation by constant waves that had washed away a soil bank and uncovered the heavy fossils. The outcrop of the Woodbine Formation visible at Lake Lewisville starts at the Red River in North Texas and thins as it nears Dallas.

Condon, who had previously found other fossils in the area, initially thought the pieces were petrified wood.

“This piece looked like a loaf of bread from Subway. It was all wrinkled,” Condon said. “Then I picked it up and turned it over and saw it had teeth — big, round conical teeth — and I thought, ‘This is amazing. It’s a jaw.'”

Co-authors on the article were SMU paleontologists Michael J. Polcyn, Dale A. Winkler and Louis L. Jacobs, and also paleontologist Octavio Mateus, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal.

The research was funded by Southern Methodist University???s Institute for the Study of Earth & Man. — Margaret Allen

Tags Dale A. Winkler, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Institute for the Study of Earth & Man, Louis L. Jacobs, Michael J. Polcyn, Thomas L. Adams

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Corporal punishment: Mothers’ self-recorded audio gives unique real-time view of spanking

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 22, 2011

Mothers’ self-recorded audio gives unique real-time view of spanking within the context of day-to-day activity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISIc_DbHRzk

But occasionally conflict erupts, sometimes followed by corporal punishment.

The data go to the heart of the long-running debate over whether parents should spank their children.

“In the case where the child was slapped for grabbing a book, it was not 10 seconds later he did it again,” said Holden. “The amazing thing is, the mom was reading so nicely to the child and the child was being so normal, reaching for the book or wanting to turn the page or point to something.”

Believed to be first audio data of naturally occurring spanking

With its “event-sampling” approach, the research is a unique opportunity to understand what’s going on in the life of a family before spanking, including whether conflict gradually escalates or instead blows up out of nowhere, Holden said. It also reveals what occurs with spanking, such as verbal reprimands, admonitions, yelling or time-out.

“Despite the fact there have been hundreds of studies on spanking, I think with these audio recordings we have the first data of naturally occurring spanking,” said Holden, who has published five books and more than 55 scientific papers on parenting and child development.

“Virtually all previous studies have relied on verbal reports, either asking parents how often they spank, and a few asking children how they felt about being spanked,” he said. “This study is not affected or biased by memory or attitudes or orientations toward discipline because it’s what’s happening in the home.”

The research, “Investigating Actual Incidents of Spanking in the Home,” was presented June 3-4 at the international conference “Global Summit on Ending Corporal Punishment and Promoting Positive Discipline” in Dallas.

Holden, a professor in the SMU Department of Psychology, was a conference organizer and is an advocate of positive alternatives to spanking as cited in his psychology textbook “Parenting: A Dynamic Perspective” (Sage Publications Inc., 2010).

Chaotic interactions indicate parents didn’t alter practices

Participants in the study included families of various ethnicities, ranging from affluent to middle income to poor, said Paul Williamson, a researcher on the study. Acts of corporal punishment also varied, from spanking with a belt to admonishing children while hitting, said Williamson, an SMU psychology doctoral student.

“One interaction in particular, a child of 2 or 3 years of age had either been hitting or kicking her mother, and in response the mother either spanks the child or slaps the child on the hand and says, ‘That’ll teach you not to hit your mother,'” Williamson said. “We’ve captured interactions with families that are very chaotic. Some of them are actually quite difficult to listen to. That tells us, at least for some families, they’re not inhibiting or suppressing the kinds of parenting practices they use.”

Spanking and negative unintended consequences

Researchers invited mothers to participate in the study through fliers distributed at day-care centers, said Williamson. Mothers were informed of the study’s purpose to look at parent-child interactions. The mothers agreed to wear the audio recording devices each evening for up to six days. “We’re finding a wide range of reactions to the spanking,” Holden said. “Some children don’t appear to react, whereas the majority react with crying, some tantruming and some whimpering that can go from just a few seconds, to our longest is about 75 seconds.” Parents didn’t shy from talking with the researchers about spanking and their belief that it’s effective and necessary discipline, the researchers said. “So many parents believe in the technique and are not defensive about their use of it,” Holden said. “They erroneously believe it’s a useful technique to raise well-behaved kids.” Spanking widespread globally, despite harm to children From 70 percent to 90 percent of parents spank their children, and it’s practiced in the vast majority of countries worldwide, Holden said. Studies have shown that its single positive effect is immediate compliance. Increasingly, however, the evidence is clear that spanking is associated with many unintended negative consequences, he said.

“Children who are spanked are more likely to be aggressive toward other children and adults,” Holden said. “Over the long term they tend to be more difficult and noncompliant, have various behavior problems, can develop anxiety disorders or depression, and later develop antisocial behavior. They are more at risk to be involved in intimate partner violence, and they are at risk to become child abusers.”

The discipline also can escalate, Holden said.

“We know that the majority of physical child abuses cases actually begin with a disciplinary encounter that then gets out of control,” he said. “So for that reason alone, it’s not a good idea to use corporal punishment.”

The researchers hope their study ultimately will help parents use positive discipline and less punishment, he said. “It’s not the once or twice a year that a child may be swatted, but it’s the kids who are exposed to frequent corporal punishment — that is the concern,” Holden said. “Kids need discipline, but centered on mutual respect and love, without potentially harming the child with corporal punishment.” Besides Holden and Williamson, other researchers included Grant Holland, SMU psychology graduate student, and Rose Dunn, an SMU psychology department graduate. The study was funded by Timberlawn Psychiatric Research Foundation in Dallas.

The “Global Summit on Ending Corporal Punishment and Promoting Positive Discipline” was sponsored by Southern Methodist University, the Center for Effective Discipline, the Center for Children and Families, the Child Rights Information Network, the Global Initiative to End Corporal Punishment of Children, the Family Violence & Sexual Assault Institute, and the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma.

Tags George W. Holden, Paul Williamson, SMU Department of Psychology

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Youtube: Trailer of Projecto PaleoAngola documentary

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 8, 2011

SMU paleontologists Louis L. Jacobs and Michael J. Polcyn appear in a new documentary about Projecto PaleoAngola, a collaborative international scientific research program focused on the ancient life of Angola.

“The results of our fieldwork in the Cretaceous of Angola have been extraordinarily spectacular,” says Jacobs.

Besides the discovery of the first dinosaur of Angola the team has uncovered mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, turtles and other Cretaceous marine animals, but the aim is also to create a strong and lasting institutional and scientific collaboration that has a multiplier effect in Angolan academia.

A trailer of the upcoming documentary is available on YouTube. The film was written, directed, and produced by Kalunga Lima of LS films, based in Luanda Angola, and edited by Helena Alves. Lima interviewed Jacobs and Polcyn, who are both members of the Projecto PaleoAngola team.

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To book a live or taped interview with Louis Jacobs or Mike Polcyn in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu. (Photo: Octavio Mateus)

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Rare find alters origins and distribution of Terminonaris; first home was Texas and North America — not Europe

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