This is an area of active research. Right now a lot of effort is being directed toward understanding the genetic basis for feather development and evolution, to see how they evolved from the original scales/skin of reptiles. That's probably a necessary precursor to understanding why they evolved.

The "smartest" dinosaurs are probably things like Troodon, which is a relative of Velociraptor. But none of these are especially intelligent; they have brains about the size of ostriches, for their body size. You need to look to true birds to find really smart dinos. Otherwise, I think many were social, some cared for…

There have been huge improvements in our understanding of the other animals from the time of dinosaurs. Mammals, in particular, have proven much more interesting and diverse than the old-school "rat-like" versions we're all used to. There were ancient mammal species that swam, glided, climbed, and dug, as well as some…

Other kinds of soft tissue have been found in other dinosaurs. There are two T. rex specimens that have yielded decent soft tissues, but in addition keratin has been found in the claw-sheaths of some other theropods. And I suspect that as our techniques improve, we will get similar samples from other dinosaurs where…

Brontosaurus isn't gone, it's just considered a synonym of Apatosaurus. But it's still a separate species - so Brontosaurus excelsus became Apatosaurus excelsus. In principle, another scientist could come along and change their mind, and say that excelsus should not be a species of Apatosaurus. In that event,…

I would like to see at least one dinosaur that is new to science. The odds of finding dinosaur DNA and having all of it come from dinosaurs that we already have bones of—that's incredibly unlikely. They should bring out a cloned dinosaur that is just completely new, and had to name themselves.

I assume because the "p" is silent?

I would think of it as dinosaurs being successful at diversifying into new species. Each species didn't last very long, not longer than modern mammal species, but evolution was generating new species for a very long time. Technically, they are about as successful as mammals, having arisen at the same time and survived…

I think you'd be about as successful as if you parachuted onto the Serengeti. I doubt dinosaurs were more common than African big mammals (i.e. not very common in any one place), but that you'd be similarly ill-equipped to defend yourself without the aid of weapons. A bare-handed human generally is a match for a…

Unfortunately it is, partly because you're seeing a shift in how science thinks about groups of organisms as well as a shift in how two particular groups are thought to be related.

I quite like Dinosaur Train because it encourages the kind of questioning that science is built on. So when I meet kids who watch it, and say things like "I have a hypothesis," I think that the show is doing a great job.

(I've got at the first two elsewhere, so here's a go at #3)

Ah, I see that you feel my pain. We have this helpful t-shirt:

I don't have specific inside info on the Utah dinosaurs, but I know that their field programs are extensive and ongoing, and that you can expect numerous new species in the coming years, not just ceratopsids (but surely more of those, too).

Many western states have excellent dinosaur-fossil outcrops - Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, the Dakotas. Really anywhere with Mesozoic-age rocks and a dry enough climate to prevent a lot of vegetation from covering them. Many museums out west offer programs or classes where you can join a dig in progress, as well.

Hah! To give a serious answer, I think that broadening scientific knowledge is an issue for all of my colleagues regardless of where they are from. But they are often interested in the particularly American conflicts that we have, which are not usually present elsewhere.

We probably have not found any more than a minority of dinosaur species. We have named around 2,000 species but find a new one every 5-6 weeks or so, and have been for the last 20 years. That's about 10-12 species per year. The fact that the rate continues to remain high suggests that we are still into the early…

I think perhaps Deinonychus. Here's a dinosaur that should be more famous than Velociraptor, because it really sparked the "dinosaur renaissance" and helped scientists revise our view of dinosaurs into active, lively animals. But thanks to Jurassic Park, Velociraptor (or the overlarge version if it) gets all the fame…

If you use EQ, there are some dinosaurs (such as Troodon) that reach the levels of "less-intelligent" birds such as ostriches. But almost all other kinds of dinosaurs have lower EQs than birds, although many exceed the EQs of "typical" reptiles. How this all relates to actual intelligence, however, is not at all clear.

It's pretty clear that theropods, at least, had a very avian-like lung with at least some air sacs in the system. It's likely but less certain that sauropods had something similar. Other dinosaurs (ornithischians) are really ambiguous - they do not have the bony relics of such a system, but that doesn't mean it was…