New Dinosaur Species Found in India

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.

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.

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.

...and then a virus they were both susceptible to infected both a man and an ape in EXACTLY the same location in their DNAs (the odds of such a match by luck are literally on the order of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1...), *and* that the infections both happened in their gametocyte cells (combined odds on the order of 1,000,000 to 1) *and* that the one particular affected gametocyte is the one which produces the egg or sperm which is destined to produce an offspring (*HUGE* odds against), and *then* the resulting modified genome of the offspring becomes "fixed" in each respective population (1 out of population_size^squared)...

As we study genetics more broadly, and the scientists demonstrate that two or more subjects in a population of different decent have acquired the same "fossilized" viral DNA sequence, will you acknowledge that genetics disproves evolution by common descent?

By your logic, if we found one "fossilized" viral DNA sequence retained by provably uncommon decent creatures, your whole theory of common decent represented in the genetic record would be blown. The odds you are asserting would make it impossible for two creatures of uncommon descent to have the same "fossilized" viral DNA sequence.

Just another future workaround for the Evolutionists.

Of course you realize that we have examined only 1/100,000,000,000,000 of 1% of the genetic record, and we only have access to 1/100,000,000,000,000,000 of 1% of the past genetic records. Your probabilities are not based on evidence that has been examined because we can't examine data enough to say such things.

Looks as if your foray into mathematics is no longer required for the number of mutations at certain spots. But to tidy things up a bit there is an additional comment, cows are not our kissin' cousins.

The statistical significance of the pattern, and it is a pattern, is still elusive. However, it is now apparent, due to a detailed explanation, that the data demonstrate that distinct pattern. We have an explantion for why the changes would be seen at certain spots, but the explanation for those changes not being seen at other sites with the same degrees of freedom is not conclusively demonstrated. The explanation attributing that pattern completely to randomness, is not acceptable. The allowed mutations in the waggle spots represents unknown numbers of mutations in other spots erased by correcting mechanisms (we know they exist) and/or selection of some sort. If the group of primates is compared to the non-primates the total number of mutations are 10 and 11(13 if the Guinea pig is counted) indicating a similar mutation rate for both. If one group has better fidelity than the other there should be a significant difference depending on time, with the better kept record having less defects than the other. That is not shown. The conclusion I draw from the pattern and those numbers is that both are being maintained. I await the significance.

Indeed, I am very much interested in ancient texts! Thank you so much for the encouragement!!!

what's even more fascinating is how most of it has come to light 2000 years later, with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi finds, etc..

Indeed. The dating of texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls and their accuracy compared to current texts, underscores the faithfulness of the scribes throughout the ages.

Another point that should be made, especially for Fundamentalist Christians following our discussion, concerns this passage:

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, [even] to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. - Daniel 12:4

Obviously we are in a time of unprecedented knowledge and travel, thus many have been curious whether the hidden text has been revealed to any extent.

Some have proposed that the Bible Code is the hidden text mentioned in Daniel. So far I believe the search has been limited to a simple matrix but there was some talk of looking for any patterns in a holographic. As I recall, Newton suspected there was a code in the Pentateuch.

Still others have mentioned the book of Enoch which was rediscovered in 1773 in Ethopia, further authenticated by fragments found at Quamran, and recently translated. Enoch begins:

The blessing of Enoch; with which he blessed the elect and the righteous who would be present on the day of tribulation at (the time of) the removal of all the ungodly ones. And Enoch, the blessed and righteous man of the Lord, took up (his parable) while his eyes were open and he saw, and said "(This is) a holy vision from the heavens which the angels showed me; and I heard from them everything and I understood. I look not for this generation but for the distant one that is coming. I speak about the elect ones and concerning them. (The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume I, 1 Enoch)

I really wonder about Enoch as a candidate for several reasons. First, the age and obscure origin of it:

“But the date of the original writing upon which the second century B.C. Qumran copies were based is shrouded in obscurity. It is, in a word, old… “ - Lost Books – the book of Enoch

Secondly, whereas the book of Enoch is mostly a parable it also includes some strange references to astrophysical phenomenon which would not have been known until the far distant future:

That the light of the moon comes from the sun: "Then Uriel showed me another order (concerning) when light is beamed into the moon, from which direction of the bright sun it is beamed." 1 Enoch 78:10

We know that the moon orbits the sun and the sun orbits the Milky Way. It is very strange (to me) that Enoch would say: "They [sun and moon] do not depart from their orbit, neither increase or decrease it; but they keep faith one with another; in accordance with an oath they set and they rise." – 1 Enoch 41:5

That they generate energy: “they do not economize (on energy), for their very essence generates new power.” – 1 Enoch 41:7

That the sun shines even when it is not seen: “And neither does it diminish (in respect to its brightness) not take rest but continue to run day and night. – 1 Enoch 72: 36

And perhaps a reference to supernova: “And I saw another thing regarding lightening: how some stars arise and become lightening and cannot dwell with the rest.” 1 Enoch 44

And then there is a reference to the end of all that there is (and beginning) which sounds like a singularity: in chapter 18 a place with no measure and no content, a pit "where the heavens come together." He records that the angel explained [v. 14] "this is the ultimate end of heaven and earth; it is the prison house for the stars and the powers of heaven…"

I'm still a newbie in the Nag Hammadi corner, so I might find something even better there.

Anyway, just a few thoughts to chew on…

It isn't a great stretch to believe the moon shines by reflected sunlight, even it both are circling the earth. It would be interesting to find the first written record of this concept.

Some fast searching tells me it was Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (ca. 450 B.C.), who is credited with:

# Among last of Ionian natural philosophers of note; taught in Athens
# "Nothing comes into being or perishes, but is compounded from or dissolved into things that are"
# Inspired atomists by arguing that all things are compounded from numberless minute portions of an elemental an universal substance
# Universe is unlimited in extent, similarly composed, and subject to similar laws
# Universe is ruled by Mind - the Logos - not by whims of gods
# Moon shines by reflected sunlight (lunar eclipse) and has mountains on its surface
# Stars are fiery bodies so distant that we cannot feel their warmth as we do the Sun's
# Universe is of unlimited extension in which things are similarly composed and subject to similar laws (contrary to general belief among Greeks)

He got so many things right he may have been a stranded time-traveler.

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