Werewolves conference in UK

The itinerary for the UK's only werewolf conference

By Laurence Cawley BBC News

With international papers, workshops and a keynote speaker, a three-day conference to be held at the University of Hertfordshire next month resembles most other academic gatherings. What makes this one different is the subject matter: werewolves.
Lycanthropy is a word not often heard.
First coined in the 16th Century, it means the (mythical) transformation of a person into a wolf.
On 3 September - four days after the next full moon - many of the world's leading experts in lycanthropy will gather at the University of Hertfordshire for the UK's only werewolf conference.

Read rest here :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-33971546

Makes me almost wish I wasn't retired from academia. I would have loved to go to that .

Monster or something else?

What is this 'Roch Ness Monster' washed up at Hollingworth Lake?

   By Amy Glendinning

Adele Battersby found the four foot-long beast lying dead on the shore of the Littleborough lake and it's enough to give you nightmares. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, this huge creature – dubbed the Roch Ness Monster – was found washed up on the shores of the Littleborough lake on Sunday afternoon.
Read rest see pic here:http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/pike-monster-hollingworth-lake-scary-9789709

It is probably a pike as stated in the article. It shows how people can mistake remains for something more fortean.Always look for the simple explanation first .

Dinosaurs had ginger feathers and were not scaly.

Why we like to believe that dinosaurs were scaly

Once thought to be terrifying, scaly lizards, it now seems dinosaurs were actually more like birds. But not everyone's ready to accept their new image, writes Mary Colwell. "All Brontosauruses are thin at one end, much, much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end," declared the pedantic Miss Anne Elk in the famous Monty Python sketch more than 40 years ago. Miss Elk's observation still holds fast, but many of our other opinions about dinosaurs have changed.The word "dinosaur" is made from the combination of two Greek words, "deinos" which means terrible or fearfully great, and "saur" which means lizard. It was first used in 1842 by the palaeontologist Richard Owen who saw some similarities between huge fossil bones and the skeletons of living reptiles.He suggested "establishing a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles, for which I would propose the name of Dinosauria".

And further down the page “Much intellectual blood has been shed in the corridors of paleontological research institutes over the years as evidence has been amassed to show that dinosaurs were highly varied in size and behaviour, and more like birds than reptiles.
"All the evidence is that dinosaurs were warm-blooded," says Mike Benton, professor of palaeontology at Bristol University. "When you look at the bone histology [structure] you see they had growth patterns and replacement of bone very like mammals and birds… Many if not most dinosaurs had feathers." Many of those feathers were coloured ginger and white and black.”

Read rest see pics  here :http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33678744

Would dinosaurs be less scary with feathers? Probably but they would still have sharp teeth so not for cuddling. Does this mean some cryptids may have feathers? Some cryptids are believed to be relics of past ages  and so could be feathered and not hairy or scaly .It is difficult to tell when you are startled by the sight of a cryptid and don’t see clearly but it is always possible that feathers or fine down are mistaken as hair or fur. Just a thought for the weekend .