How much for that herrerasaurus in the window?

ONE UPSIDE TO the recession: Dinosaur fossils can be picked up for a song, according to Smithsonian magazine's dino-fetish blog, Dinosaur Tracking. In Vancouver recently, a triceratops skull that had been expected to fetch $200,000 went for a mere $60,000, while a full Edmontosaurus skeleton estimated to be worth a halfmillion dollars sold for $150,000. (Edmontosaurus was a duck-billed vegetarian.)

Prices like those are a boon to multimillionaire hobbyists looking for that perfect objet for the study, but they're still too dear for most museums, which rely on the largesse of private collectors (like the anonymous one who bought "Cliff" the triceratops last year and promptly lent it to Boston's Museum of Science). Sellers remain hopeful: On March 21, the I.M. Chait Gallery in New York will try to sell an extremely rare, nearly complete skeleton of a dryosaurus. The gallery says it hopes the Jurassic plant eater will bring $500,000, but we'll see.

LECTURES ARE A punching bag for pedagogical reformers: Having a professor opine for an hour as students type frantically or zone out after flicking on a digital voice recorder is an ineffective way to shape young minds, say the skeptics. San Juan College, a community college in New Mexico, has come up with its own brand of reform: It has asked professors to boil their stem-winders down to 60 seconds, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The so-called microlectures are deployed only in online courses - they're prerecorded - and students have to do other reading assignments and homework. Also, some professors just can't get down to 60 seconds and so drone on for as long as three minutes. Still, the Lilliputian lectures represent a significant step: Every course in San Juan's online occupational-safety program features them, for instance, and they've spread to courses on tribal governance, academic-reading comprehension, and veterinary studies.

The online services manager for San Juan, David Penrose, insists that "such tiny bursts can teach just as well as traditional lectures when paired with assignments and discussions." Yet not everyone on the campus was immediately won over. Sandra Tracy, the dean of the school of extended learning, at first thought the 60-second lectures "just didn't seem long enough." Then she came around to the view that they were useful "snapshots of learning."

"San Juan administrators are impressed with the results," summarizes the Chronicle, "as enrollment in the occupational-safety program, which uses microlectures exclusively, quickly ballooned to 449 by its second semester."

So, how do you condense a 60-minute lecture into a microlecture? Glad you asked. The Chronicle offers a five-step primer, and here are the fi rst three steps:

1. List the key concepts you are trying to convey in the 60-minute lecture. That series of phrases will form the core of your microlecture.

2. Write a 15 to 30-second introduction and conclusion. They will provide context for your key concepts.

3. Record these three elements using a microphone and Web camera . . . The finished product should be 60 seconds to three minutes long.

Voila!

Wait: How long do I get for my core ideas, again?

FROM THE START, one of the arguments in favor of daylight saving time was that it conserves energy: With sunlight stretching further into the evening hours, there's less need for man-made lighting. And that argument was central to Congress's decision, effective two years ago, to begin DST earlier - in mid-March instead of April.

In a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, however, two professors at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Matthew J. Kotchen and Laura E. Grant, find that daylight saving time actually causes more energy to be expended. What is saved from decreased use of lights is more than counterbalanced by extra money spent on heating and cooling, they find.

But the research didn't take into account the psychological benefits of longer (lit) spring evenings. My own small research sample suggests they are extensive, at least after a discombobulated day or two.

Christopher Shea is a weekly columnist for Ideas. He can be reached at brainiac.email@gmail.com.

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