Posted on 08/19/2016 2:56:56 PM PDT by JimSEA
One of the great transformations required for the descendants of fish to become creatures that could walk on land was the replacement of long, elegant fin rays by fingers and toes. In the Aug. 17, 2016 issue of Nature, scientists from the University of Chicago show that the same cells that make fin rays in fish play a central role in forming the fingers and toes of four-legged creatures.
After three years of painstaking experiments using novel gene-editing techniques and sensitive fate mapping to label and track developing cells in fish, the researchers describe how the small flexible bones found at the ends of fins are related to fingers and toes, which are more suitable for life on land.
"When I first saw these results you could have knocked me over with a feather," said the study's senior author, Neil Shubin, PhD, the Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago. Shubin is an authority on the transition from fins to limbs.
"For years," he said, "scientists have thought that fin rays were completely unrelated to fingers and toes, utterly dissimilar because one kind of bone is initially formed out of cartilage and the other is formed in simple connective tissue. Our results change that whole idea. We now have a lot of things to rethink."
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Markers of the wrists and digits in the limb of a mouse (left) are present in fish and demarcate the fin rays (right). The wrist and digits of tetrapods are the cellular and genetic equivalents of the fin rays of fish.
As I recall, there was a massive controversy after the discover of the "Tiktaalik" fossil and similar fossils. This study goes into the genetics of the fin adaptations leading to feet that the morphology of Tiktaalik shows.
Yeah ... carbon .... so ?
Long John Silver’s could probably offer some insight on the issue. I remember they used to sell Fish Fingers.
*groan*
Research could in turn help uncover the mystery behind chicken fingers, and perhaps even chicken nuggets.
Horse crap.
Nonsense.
puhleeze !
Very cool! Thanks for posting.
>Yeah ... carbon .... so ?
In a closed mind a thought may not enter.
Headshake.
No sale
Sooo, he's seen the transitional fossils? I mean, this is science, and not hokum like that wild Bible story....
Or YOU, for that matter ?
Gills to lungs would be more impressive
...and from there, they can try to unravel the mystery of how buffalo wings came into being.
...and from there, they can try to unravel the mystery of how buffalo wings came into being.
What about the fish sticks?
Or divots to eyes more impressive still....
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