Montana Dinosaur Skeleton Sells for $47.255M as New Species Emerges

Montana's fossil-rich Hell Creek Formation produced two major paleontological milestones this week as a 67-million-year-old adult Nanotyrannus skeleton named "Jodi" sold for $47.255 million at Sotheby's, according to Lauren Barry at KCBS Radio, while an international research team identified Infernogallus jamesi — the first known fruit-eating dinosaur — from the same formation, Quinn Mercer reported in Hoodline. Across national energy and medical research, the Tennessee Valley Authority opened talks on tapping a $120 billion South Korean nuclear reactor investment package (Hoodline), and Arkansas's Highlands Oncology Group expanded its clinical trials program to nearly 150 studies (Hoodline).

Montana Nanotyrannus “Jodi” Fetches $47.255M as Infernogallus jamesi Reveals Fruit Diet

Sold on Tuesday after a 12-minute bidding war at Sotheby's, the Nanotyrannus skeleton "Jodi" became the second most valuable fossil ever auctioned, trailing only a T. rex named Gus that sold for more than $50 million in July. Discovered in 2019 by Jodi Pierson on private land near Jordan in Garfield County, Montana (and excavated with Clayton Phipps, Luke Phipps, Katie Busch, Nathan Cooper, Chris Morrow, and Kelly Pierson before appearing on Discovery's Dino Hunters in 2020 and entering a private collection in 2021), the mounted skeleton stands 9 feet 6 inches tall and 19.6 feet long from nose to tail (with a 33 1/2-inch femur and 14 1/2-inch humerus). The specimen comprises 191 fossil bone elements, including a virtually complete skull with 53 bones and 50 teeth alongside 15 caudal vertebrae, 15 cervical ribs, 25 dorsal ribs, and 10 chevrons.

From a 2011 Montana Hell Creek specimen, paleontologists led by Stony Brook University's Greg Funston — with colleagues from the Royal Ontario Museum including Dr. David Evans and the North Dakota Geological Survey — published findings on Oct. 10 in Nature Communications identifying Infernogallus jamesi ("hell chicken"). Weighing roughly 12 kilograms (25 to 26 pounds), the toothless caenagnathid oviraptorosaur possessed an articulated skull whose lower jaw could slide forward and backward up to 15 millimeters with parrot-like musculature adapted to crush fleshy angiosperm fruits and pits, which evolved nearly 75 million years ago (about 10 million years earlier than previously estimated, alongside early 120-million-year-old fruit-swallowing birds like Jeholornis).

TVA Weighs $120B South Korean Nuclear Package and Highlands Oncology Expands Trials

In energy infrastructure, the Tennessee Valley Authority (which faces a statutory $30 billion borrowing cap and has cut nearly $1 billion in operations and maintenance costs while estimating its planned 300-megawatt Clinch River BWRX-300 small modular reactor at $5.4 billion, with $350 million authorized by its board and an $800 million federal grant application pending) is talking with federal officials about drawing on Project Power, a $120 billion South Korean nuclear investment package ($100 billion for construction and $20 billion for contingencies, backed by a $10 billion year-end advance payment and accompanied by a separate $40 billion Japan energy trade initiative). The deal is designed to build 8 U.S. reactors — 2 South Korean APR1400 units and 6 Westinghouse AP1000 units at roughly $15 billion apiece — across candidate states including Tennessee, Kentucky (where a 6-reactor, 6.6-gigawatt Prosperity One project is proposed for 2028), Ohio, and South Carolina.

In clinical oncology, Springdale, Arkansas-based Highlands Oncology Group (founded in 1996, with over 26 years of research and 250 active trial patients at the end of 2025) invested $4 million in a 12,100-square-foot Clinical Trials Suite inside its $30 million facility, growing its research portfolio over 6 years from 70 trials to nearly 150 (with 122 listed online, including 29 in metastatic breast cancer, 19 in non-small cell lung cancer, 8 each in multiple myeloma and prostate cancer, 6 in colorectal cancer, 5 in small cell lung cancer, and 2 in ovarian cancer) while boosting its research staff by 42% over 5 years to 60 full-time researchers under Dr. Eric Schaefer (17 years in Northwest Arkansas, noting lung cancer survival gains from 14 months to 3 to 4 years and myeloma gains from 5 years to 10 to 15 years) and interim CEO Dr. Thad Beck (overseeing 140+ active trials, 30+ physicians up from 16 over 7 years, and 50+ trial staff). The practice charges $800 for CT scans (versus $4,000 at most hospitals, addressing treatment costs that bankrupt up to 3% of patients and leave survivors 2.7 times more likely to file for bankruptcy) and broke ground on a 5-story, 125,000-square-foot center on 51 acres bought for $13.6 million in August 2023 in Rogers for Q3 2028.