“Popular appreciation of these animals dates almost as far back as their scientific discovery in the mid-19th century”, states paleontologist Luis Alcalá in the introduction of Mètode‘s new monograph. Luis Alcalá is the coordinator of this new issue of the popular science magazine of the University of Valencia, which analyses the diversity of dinosaur species, the application of new technologies in palaeontology, as well as the use of these animals for the dissemination of scientific knowledge and the development of certain rural areas and in which Andrés Santos-Cubedo, Jorge Orlando Calvo, Daniel Vidal and Alberto Cobos Periáñez have participated.

"The fascination that dinosaurs provoke in young people makes them an attractive way of accessing the scientific method," says Dr. Alcalá, current managing director of the Science Park of Granada and who was director of the Dinópolis Foundation between 2002 and 2021. The issue makes us travel from the areas in the Maestrat basin, where we find dinosaurs such as Portellsaurus sosbaynati or Moredallon beltrani which lived in the areas that we currently know as Portell or Morell, to the giant sauropods of Argentina, where spectacular species such as Notocolossus gonzalezparejasi or Puertasaurus reuili, weighing up to 70 to 80 tonnes, have been discovered.  The issue has illustrations by the paleoillustrator Óscar Sanisidro, researcher of the University of Valencia, who also explains the process of artistic reconstruction of animals that no longer exist.

From the value of water to the beauty of nudibranchs

Mètode‘s new issue also devotes a dossier, coordinated by Carles Sanchis Ibor, which explores the management, preservation and sustainability of water uses in a context of climate change and overexploitation of resources. We also remember the accident of Palomares and interview the specialist in mathematics didactics Frederick Leung.  In addition, Joandoménec Ros offers a suggestive paper, where he explores the beauty of extraordinary molluscs: the nudibranchs and the sacoglossans.

A new issue of Mètode, as always accompanied by its usual contributions and recommendations of scientific readings to respond to the challenges that our society has to face. Challenges that, as Mètode director Martí Domínguez reminds us in the editorial of this issue, "we cannot lose sight of if we aspire to at least match the passage of the dinosaurs on Earth".