Living dinosaurs

abc.net.au ^ | 9/30/2002

[SteveH]

News in Science

News in Science 30/9/2002 Living dinosaurs

[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s687677.htm]

	Model of Sinosauropteryx sprima (pronounced 'sine-oh-saw-op-te-rix pree-ma')made by Alan Groves working with palaeontologists Drs Walter Boles and Sue Hand.

If we are to believe the message of a new exhibit demonstrating the evolutionary transition from dinosaurs to birds, dinosaurs are not extinct.

Four life-sized reconstructions of ferocious-looking, smart-thinking, flesh-eating feathered dinosaurs – representing 125 million-year-old missing links between dinosaurs and birds – have landed at the Australian Museum in Sydney as part of the Chinese Dinosaurs exhibition.

"The birds we see flying around our backyards are actually living dinosaurs, descendants of prehistoric beasts we all once presumed became extinct 65 million years ago," said museum director, Professor Mike Archer.

"But feathers were evolving as dinosaur attributes long before they became valuable as flight structures," he said.

"Indeed fossils uncovered in the Liaoning Province of China have provided a whole sequence of missing links in the dinosaur to bird story."

Model of Sinornithosaurus smillenii (pronounced 'sine-or-nith-oh-saw-rus mill-en-ee-eye) made by Alan Groves working with palaeontologists Drs Walter Boles and Sue Hand.
 

One of the earlier links is Sinosauropteryx prima. The creature is covered with what looks to be a fine fuzz but are really small barbs – a link between scales and feathers.

"It's a metre-long, meat-eating, ground-dwelling predator, closely related to the dinosaur in Jurassic Park II which ate the little girl on the beach," said Professor Archer.

He speculated these very early feathers were probably for insulation since this group was almost certainly warm blooded.

The Sinornithosaurus millenii (top picture) embodies a later link.

"This is a very vicious little predator about a metre long. But here the feathers are much larger – although they're not fully formed or capable of flight," said Professor Archer.

An interesting characteristic of the creature was its capacity to lift its arms over its head in a flapping motion. Professor Archer said scientists assumed its array of feathers had a purpose – to frighten predators, help capture prey, attract mates or threaten male competitors.

The next stage – the development of feathers for flight – is seen in creatures like the Archseopteryx, a smaller animal than Sinornithosaurus millenii with longer and assymetrical feathers.

While there has been some debate as to whether dinosaurs (unlike other groups of reptiles) are the ancestors of birds, Professor Archer believes since 1996 there has been no strong argument against the hypothesis.

"I don't know anyone who is still holding out on this one," he said. "Other than the creationists of course who don't want anything to be ancestral to birds."

Chinese Dinosaurs is open until February next year. The dino-bird exhibit is sponsored by The Australian Skeptics.

Anna Salleh - ABC Science Online

More Info?

British Natural History Museum Dino-Birds Exhibition

Missing link from fur to feathers – News in Science 27/4/2001

Dinosaur fossil with proto-feathers – News in Science 8/3/2001

Dinosaur-bird theory defended – News in Science 24/11/2000

© ABC 2002 | privacy

[f.Christian]

but overall the lower sub surface crust and plates formed from the *top to* bottom!

[Axenolith]

I live in Hawaii and see a variety of 'lava'... nothing is totally uniform--- for the appalachians type mountains to form the surface of the earth must have expanded....

There was a collision between what is present day Africa and the east coast creating the uplift of the Appalachian range. The process creates a distict sequence of sedimentary rocks over time. The mechanisms and associated rock suites can be observed in the process of formation in several areas of the world today (Indian subcontinent collision, Marianas Trench\Japan island arc complex, Great Rift Valley in Africa.
In the case of the Appalachian orogeny (orogeny=mountain building episode) the pieces match, the rocks match, the dates match and the fossils match (from N. America to NW Africa)

What plate tuetonics/earthquakes do is mostly unpredictable.

Plate tectonics is totally predictable. I can tell you now that Europe will be about 2.5 centimeters (cm) farther from us next year, Mt. Everest will (baring a big landslide) be about 3-5 cm higher etc...
Earthquakes are just a symptom of plate tectonics. (with the exception of deep well injection of wastes :)

[Axenolith]

The canyons would be different/same than the plates because as the plates cracked--widening... the slope--triangle would be inverted---pointing down.

Canyons, with the exception of the rift valleys, are exclusively erosional features. If they formed by cracking, they'd all have normal or reverse faults in the bottom and you just don't see that.

[Axenolith]

What about those diamond pipes?

The whole thermodynamics would say they were coming up from lower hotter
levels---higher pressures!

---

Kimberlites, basically a high temp and pressure [origin] magmatic intrusions which cooled relatively rapidly in place.

Is this pertinent to the subject??? You're claiming the lower structures were formed\solidified first...
FYI

http://geology.csupomona.edu/drjessey/class/GSC433/Kimberlites.html

[jennyp]

In fact, the latest major discovery in the field has been the discovery of a vertebrate fish in the Cambrian adding to the number of phyla which have no ancestry before the Cambrian. In other words, the doo doo is getting deeper, not shallower for evolution.

I have a question that's been nagging me for some time: What the heck is the Cambrian "explosion" supposed to prove, anyway?

[Junior]

The only pre-cambrian multi-cellular animal is a worm.

Beep. Circle takes the square. There were whole groups of what researchers call "quilted animals" whose body design has best been described as resembling an inflatable mattress. Additionally there were jellyfish-like animals. The worms you speak of are inferred through the tracks they left; AFAIK, no actual Vendian worm fossils have been found. Go to the remaindered section of Books-a-Million and pick up any of the books they have there on prehistoric life -- you might actually learn something.

[Junior]

There were a few weird fossils which never made it to the Cambrian so they are irrelevant to the discussion.

Ah, the g3k tap dance. You specifically said the only pre-Cambrian multicellulars were worms (see my above post for the exact quote). Now that you've been shown to be grossly in error, you change your story.

[PatrickHenry]

Placemarker.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Hey! Good morning from the Pre-Cambrian. Sponge Bob and I will be having waffles.

[PatrickHenry]

I see cracks starting to appear in the Lyndon LaRouche-Velikovsky witness protection program.

[general_re]

So you like this incarnation, eh?

[Ahban]

The link I provided gives the ID theory I back. It fits with old earth bibical creationism.

Just like there is more than one type of evolutionary theory (like PE vs. classical Darwin) there is more than one type of ID as well.

The testable theory given at the link I provided in my previous post, and the one I adhere to is this....

The universe was designed to support human life by a Creator God who exists outside the three space dimensions plus time universe, but can enter and act in that universe.

He interseeded after the initial creation event as well, doing what scientists are doing today when they make monkies with jellyfish genes that can glow in the dark. In other words, He made new life forms that would not have arisen on there own in the time and space that they have occurred. That is why the diversity of the biota is so much greater than seems possible by the amount of evolution we observe today. He built some variability/adaptability into the system, as all good engineers do, but not an amount that would allow the rapid increase in complexity that occurred. He quit with Man. Man was His last "supernatural" (though that is just natural actions according to the laws of the extra dimensions we have not discovered yet) creation.

How is that?

[gore3000]

AFAIK, no actual Vendian worm fossils have been found.

That's correct, but paleontologists being very loose speaking, and evolutionists even more so, they call any evidence they like whatever they like. Regardless, the only multicellular in the Cambrian that existed before was the worm. No others of the 40+ phyla which arose all of a sudden have any ancestors in the fossil record.

There is absolutely no possible way that 40 different phyla arose in at most 5 million years in any possible evolutionary manner. No way. The Cambrian, as Gould and Eldredge (and many other paleontologists said) disproves Darwinian evolution.

[gore3000]

I have a question that's been nagging me for some time: What the heck is the Cambrian "explosion" supposed to prove, anyway?

That evolution is bunk. During the Cambrian in a period of less than 5 million years some 40 different animal phyla arose. (a phyla is the highest order of classification of species just below kingdom). These phyla did not have any ancestors in the fossil record - and still do not. It should be noted that this problem with evolution was known in Darwin's time and he admitted that if the ancestor fossile were not found it would destroy his theory. Well they have not been found.

For those interested in learning more about the Cambrian this article should be of interest The Cambrian Explosion - Biology's Big Bang

[VadeRetro]

I notice that (repeatedly) posting links to 100K or 200K worth of graphic images do not fall into the perview of your definition of "spamming" (or you wouldn't have just done it again).

Again? What do you mean "again?" You're too young on this forum to remember any other time! OTOH, I used to post that thing to medved whenever he'd do one of his spam posts dumb-dumbing on the impossibility of intermediate features.

[The rest of your post, an old medved spam]

Oh, never mind! You're coming out of the closet sooner than expected.

AdminModerator: So, is it OK if JediGirl comes back as Libertarian-druggie-girl?

[PatrickHenry]

So you like this incarnation, eh?

I did. But as the spam creeps back in, it will become identical to the former version. This website has enough problems without being flooded with Lyndon LaRouch-flavored conspiracies and Velikovsky cult ravings.

[balrog666]

So, is it OK if JediGirl comes back as Libertarian-druggie-girl?

It doesn't appear that she even wants to do that.

BTW, how do you like TLBSHOW's one-man-show over there?

[f.Christian]

Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY(pc-religion/rhetoric)...

Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 LIBERAL NEO-America---the post-modern age of switch-flip-spin-DEFORMITY-cancer...Atheist secular materialists through ATHEISM/evolution CHANGED-REMOVED the foundations...demolished the wall(separation of state/religion)--trampled the TRUTH-GOD...built a satanic temple/SWAMP-MALARIA/RELIGION(cult of darwin-marx-satan) over them---made these absolutes subordinate--relative and calling/CHANGING all the... residuals---technology/science === TO evolution via schlock/sMUCK IDEOLOGY/lies/bias...to substantiate/justify their efforts--claims...social engineering--PC--atheism...anti-God/Truth RELIGION(USSC monopoly)--and declared a crusade/WAR--JIHAD--INTOLERANCE/TYRANNY(breaking the establishment clause)...against God--man--society/SCIENCE!!

------------------------------------------

Only lead foil can save us now...

if you don't want your brain/family sterilized---

the shield between state and TALIBAN--religion(evolution/atheism) is gone...

this is... chernobyl---radiation poisoning...

NUCLEAR SOCIAL----ALIEN ANTARTICA/AMERICA!!

---------------------------------------------------------

Changing--morphing words-meaning-reality...

the CONSTITUTION via your 'logic-reason' to your fantasy-bias world-bs/IDEOLOGY---LIBERALISM/EVOLUTION is called psychosis!

[Lurking Libertarian]

"Only lead foil can save us now" bump.