Dinosaur research backs link to birds

AP on Yahoo ^ | 4/14/07 | Randolph E. Schmid - ap

[editor-surveyor]

Not ‘good enough’ to get hornswaggled, huh?

[XRdsRev]

No, just simply not good enough to understand “rate of decay”.

[Vinnie]

Just this morning I was putting food in the bird feeder and was chased off by a velociwarbler.

[CottShop]

Bah- VelociWarblers are nuttin to worry bout- That old saying about “Weeblers Warbler but they don’t fall down” is nonsense. Warblers are infact quite clumsy because of being pidgeon-toed- Just run in circles, you’ll be fine

[Balding_Eagle]

had nothing to do with this "science".

What is unscientific about it?

[editor-surveyor]

You pathetic little groupie, speak on something you understand.

[ahayes]

We have a similarity in a medullary bone, that's it- oh, and they both lay eggs- it's a far far leap to suggest that dinos without birds unique flight capabilities and anatomical structures could take to the air. They lack the avian lung structures, the breastbone features that enable flight, the muscles necessary for flight, the nostril placement and systems to fly, on and on it goes

This is a late reply, but I just stumbled across some information on the existence of an air sac system similar to that in birds appearing in theropod dinosaurs. I'm flagellating myself for having missed this before!

Birds are unique among living vertebrates in possessing pneumaticity of the postcranial skeleton, with invasion of bone by the pulmonary air-sac system^{1, 2, 3, 4}. The avian respiratory system includes high-compliance air sacs that ventilate a dorsally fixed, non-expanding parabronchial lung^{2, 3, 5, 6}. Caudally positioned abdominal and thoracic air sacs are critical components of the avian aspiration pump, facilitating flow-through ventilation of the lung and near-constant airflow during both inspiration and expiration, highlighting a design optimized for efficient gas exchange^{2, 5, 6, 7, 8}. Postcranial skeletal pneumaticity has also been reported in numerous extinct archosaurs including non-avian theropod dinosaurs and Archaeopteryx^{9, 10, 11, 12}. However, the relationship between osseous pneumaticity and the evolution of the avian respiratory apparatus has long remained ambiguous. Here we report, on the basis of a comparative analysis of region-specific pneumaticity with extant birds, evidence for cervical and abdominal air-sac systems in non-avian theropods, along with thoracic skeletal prerequisites of an avian-style aspiration pump. The early acquisition of this system among theropods is demonstrated by examination of an exceptional new specimen of Majungatholus atopus, documenting these features in a taxon only distantly related to birds. Taken together, these specializations imply the existence of the basic avian pulmonary Bauplan in basal neotheropods, indicating that flow-through ventilation of the lung is not restricted to birds but is probably a general theropod characteristic.

O'Connor, P. M.; Claessens, L. P. A. M. "Basic avian pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian theropod dinosaurs." Nature 2005, 436, 253.

[commonguymd]

You are quite a legend in your own mind.

[SunkenCiv]

Dinosaur protein sequenced - Lucky find shows up record-breaking fossil.
news@nature.com | 12 April 2007 | Heidi Ledford
Posted on 04/13/2007 6:14:00 PM EDT by neverdem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1817005/posts

Ancient T. rex and mastodon protein fragments discovered, sequenced
National Science Foundation | 12-Apr-2007 | Cheryl Dybas
Posted on 04/12/2007 3:43:57 PM EDT by AdmSmith
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1816333/posts

BBC: Protein links T. rex to chickens ~ ummm tasty....
BBC | Thursday, 12 April 2007, 19:27 GMT 20:27 UK | Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News
Posted on 04/12/2007 4:57:11 PM EDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1816370/posts

Scientists Retrieve Proteins From Dinosaur Bone
New York times | April 12, 2007 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Posted on 04/12/2007 5:05:00 PM EDT by gcruse
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1816375/posts