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Posted on 08/13/2003 9:02:05 PM PDT by nwrep
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2 hours, 55 minutes ago
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By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Associated Press Writer
BOMBAY, India - U.S. and Indian scientists said Wednesday they have discovered a new carnivorous dinosaur species in India after finding bones in the western part of the country.
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The new dinosaur species was named Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found.
The dinosaurs were between 25-30 feet long, had a horn above their skulls, were relatively heavy and walked on two legs, scientists said. They preyed on long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs on the Indian subcontinent during the Cretaceous Period at the end of the dinosaur age, 65 million years ago.
"It's fabulous to be able to see this dinosaur which lived as the age of dinosaurs came to a close," said Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. "It was a significant predator that was related to species on continental Africa, Madagascar and South America."
Working with Indian scientists, Sereno and paleontologist Jeff Wilson of the University of Michigan reconstructed the dinosaur skull in a project funded partly by the National Geographic (news - web sites) Society.
A model of the assembled skull was presented Wednesday by the American scientists to their counterparts from Punjab University in northern India and the Geological Survey of India during a Bombay news conference.
Scientists said they hope the discovery will help explain the extinction of the dinosaurs and the shifting of the continents — how India separated from Africa, Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica and collided with Asia.
The dinosaur bones were discovered during the past 18 years by Indian scientists Suresh Srivastava of the Geological Survey of India and Ashok Sahni, a paleontologist at Punjab University.
When the bones were examined, "we realized we had a partial skeleton of an undiscovered species," Sereno said.
The scientists said they believe the Rajasaurus roamed the Southern Hemisphere land masses of present-day Madagascar, Africa and South America.
"People don't realize dinosaurs are the only large-bodied animal that lived, evolved and died at a time when all continents were united," Sereno said.
The cause of the dinosaurs' extinction is still debated by scientists. The Rajasaurus discovery may provide crucial clues, Sereno said.
India has seen quite a few paleontological discoveries recently.
In 1997, villagers discovered about 300 fossilized dinosaur eggs in Pisdura, 440 miles northeast of Bombay, that Indian scientists said were laid by four-legged, long-necked vegetarian creatures.
Indian scientists said the dinosaur embryos in the eggs may have suffocated during volcanic eruptions.
It was actually a very funny talk, though it was clear some people were taking it far too seriously.
His labs were sort of a frozen history of his research career. I swear the man never threw anything away. We found dessicated pig fetuses in drawers, and an entire human brain in a bucket (in preservative).
Fine. Show me where.
Mr. Robinson, this matter has already been submitted to the Admin Moderators. Since that's their purpose, and I'm sure you've got better things to do than personally be involved in a personal feud by a poster, I respectfully suggest that we simply let the moderators resolve it. I regret that the other party could not remain calm enough to await that result and had to bother you with it.
If however for some unfathomable reason you decide to waste your time on it, my posts recapping the matter and presenting my views on it can be found here (which is already in the hands of the moderators) and here.
Or maybe the quickest solution, if the FR administrators don't want to spend time sorting out who/what/why, and I can't imagine why they would, is to use the Solomon approach and just cut us both in half. Since AndrewC has tried to silence me (and others in the past), several times now, perhaps it's best to give him his wish -- but it's only fair if it works equally both ways, and we are both suspended for a time. It may even give him some new perspective on the nature of his demands, and perhaps he won't be so keen to suppress others when we both return.
Or I will accept any other equitable solution the administrators may decide is most appropriate.
The classic "rabbit fossil in a preCambrian rock" would certainly count. In fact, any well-documented out-of-place fossils would certainly throw the standard theory for a loop.
Another thing that would cause one to doubt the ToE would be finding that the clasification of organisms based on different proteins, genes, "junk" dna, etc., gave different phylogentic trees, or no tree at all.
So far, none of this has happened, but logically it *could*
and accept a literal Genesis account of creation?
If "literal Genesis" means YEC, I can't really think of anything - there's just too much overlapping redundant evidence for the earth being billions of years old. You'd have to, anong other things, show that the rates of radioactive decay have changed (in a consistent manner across isotopes), while at the same time preserving the other laws of physics. I can't imagine what sort of esperiments/observations could cause such fundamental changes in so many independent branches of knowledge.
What about all those hot biotech companies that have gone public in recent years? Some of them, in their prospectuses, glossy annual reports, and frequent press releases must proudly call attention to the creationist credentials of their scientific personnel. Those companies are probably introducing great new creationist-based products all the time. You're just not looking.
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