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NEW YORK: Scientists have discovered a killer dinosaur that roamed in what is now Utah some 100 million years ago. Experts say the discovery provides insight into the top predators in North America before T. rex showed up.

The two-legged beast was estimated to stretch more than 30 feet long and weigh more than 3 tons. It helps fill a gap in the fossil record of big North American predators between earlier killer beasts and the arrival of the group including T. rex. It wasn't related to that famous beast.

Researchers from the Field Museum in Chicago and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh announced the finding Friday in the journal Nature Communications. They named the beast Siats meekerorum, (SEE'-otts MEE-ke-ROH'-ruhm) after a man-eating monster of legend from Utah's Ute tribe, and a family that has donated to the Field Museum.

The specimen discovered in 2008 in Utah was a juvenile. Researchers estimated the adult size by extrapolating from the recovered fossils, which included bones of the back, tail, hip, foot and shin.

AP

BEIJING: A Chinese baby boy who had been declared dead was saved from being cremated alive when he started crying at a funeral parlour, media reported Thursday.

The parents of the critically-ill boy, who was less than one month old, had agreed to end his medical treatment at Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital in eastern China, hospital sources told Xinhua state news agency.

A death certificate was issued before the baby was sent to a funeral parlour in Hefei, the provincial capital -- only for staff there to be alerted by crying on Wednesday.

It was unclear how long he had been at the funeral parlour, or when his cremation had been due.

The baby was immediately sent back to the hospital, several news outlets including the Beijing News reported on Thursday.

"Because the baby still had life signs, we continued to give him transfusion to maintain his life for humanitarian reasons," a hospital staff member told Xinhua.

The baby was born with a "congenital respiratory system malformation", the report added.
The baby was receiving treatment at the hospital late Wednesday, reports said.

A doctor was suspended, a nursing worker laid off and an investigation launched into the incident, the hospital said, according to Xinhua.

AFP