T. Rex Protein Analysis Supports Dinosaur-Bird Link 242
LanMan04 writes "For the first time, researchers have read the biological signature of a Tyrannosaur — a signature that confirms the increasingly accepted view that modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs. Analyzing the organic material (collagen protein) found inside the unique fossil linked the collagen to several extant species. The bottom line is that the T. rex's biological signature was most like a bird's, at least based on the first fragmentary data. "It looks like chicken may be the closest among all species that are present in today's databases for proteins and genomes," one of the scientists interviewed said."
That makes sense (Score:5, Funny)
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It's kind of inspiring though, to look up and see birds and know that they are the dinosaurs. It's reassuring in a way to know that Life on earth is so resistant to extinction events.
It makes me wonder how similar their behaviour patterns are to those of the ground based dinosaurs. Once a year we have huge flocks gathering over my town before they migrate, and I spend hours watching them soaring around in ever growing numbers (some years under a bird poo resistant
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Does it really make sense that Dinosaurs became birds, or that birds became dinosaurs and survived the mass extinction. I have a difficult time believing that T-Rex's went on to evolve into birds, it seems much more likely that the T-Rex and other large dinosaurs were flukes and went extinct where the smaller ones with wings lived on.
But I am no evolutionary scientist either.
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they are distantly related because they likely share a common ancestor is all.
The Beepers "History Lesson" (Score:2)
LP info [calarts.edu], CD info [calarts.edu].
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Scientists have LONG SUSPECTED that Birds and Dinosaurs were the closest relatives....if you just look at the skeletal structures modern birds are the closest living thing to the fossil records we have and birds are the only place that scientists find several unique characteristics of the dinosaur bone structures.
This just provides a little DNA evidence to back up the fairly obvious visual/structural similarities between birds and dinos.
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you are free to draw your own conclusions regarding succession of t-rex and some companies
Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:2, Interesting)
I rewatched it a few months ago, and found it interesting that some of the concepts about dinosaurs that characters in the film considered "out there" -- namely, that dinosaurs evolved into birds, and that they were probably warm-blooded -- are pretty much the mainstream view today.
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There's a group of spectators at the dig site, Dr. Grant makes some remark about birds being related to the velociraptor skeleton they're looking at, and the spectators laugh. He then proceeds to point out all the similarities. It's right before the part where he scared the kid with his story about velociraptor hunting practices.
Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:5, Interesting)
This sort of stuff always makes me laugh...The idea that bigass dino's like the T-Rex were slow and ungainly hunters...When does nature ever produce slow ungainly hunters? The selection is always for high speed or decent speed and endurance.
Saw a special about the first filming of the giant squid a few months ago (though it was an old documentary), and they were talking about how the theory had been that the giant squid was a lazy predator that just hung out with it's arms dangling, snagging things that drifted through them, and that what the film suggested was that it was a fast, energetic predator...They're saying this with awe, like it had never occurred to them that this could be the case, while showing film of smaller squids doing their lightning fast attacks.
In retrospect it seems silly to have ever believed that dinosaurs could have been anything like as slow as was commonly thought, but it's a mistake that is not uncommon.
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The compression/tension/shear forces on the leg are roughly proportional to the weight (i.e. proportional to L^3) of the animal, and the strength of the leg against those stresses is only proportional to the cross sectional area (L^2). Legs can only get so thick, proportionately, and at some point they will break too easi
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In fact, Ornithiscia [wikipedia.org] one of the latin names to describe a certain dinosaur lineage translates as "bird hips" -- but in fact birds descended from the , or Saurischia [wikipedia.org], or "lizard hip" dinosaurs. Weird. I couldn't figure out from my cursory look into wikipedia when the theory first arose.
Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:5, Insightful)
The curious thing that birds, dinosaurs and mammals all have in common is the placement of the legs underneath the body. This is what made it possible for dinosaurs and mammals to get so big. Other lizards are stuck with their legs sticking out to the sides, which limits weight-bearing capacity and means the really big ones are primarily aquatic.
What makes this curious is that this particular innovation appears to have only evolved once in some common ancestor of mammals and dinosaurs. This suggests it must be very unlikely to evolve--much less likely than other things like wings and eyes, which have evolved independently many times. Maybe the early fossil record will eventually show that it in fact arose more than once, but it's such a huge advantage that if it were possible to get it easily one would think that it would be done more often, and it is odd that no other reptile has ever pulled it off.
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There were animals with legs on the back of their bodies but they found themselves extinct shortly after
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In order to succeed you'd have to also undermine all science, from physics to biology, via geology, chemistry, mathematics, paleontology, tectonics, astronomy, etc.
So yes, you'd deserve to be branded as a nut. Which type of nut is a trivial detail.
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I'm not sure whether pure mathematicians would consider the EA to be a proper member of their field. The outcome of an algorithm is rarely predictable, with randomness and approximation being the cornerstones of the art. They do borrow from, and are therefore related to, other fields, like physics (simulated annealing), and eco
Re: Did Someon Call the Skeptic? (Score:3)
I am convinced that nothing could cause scientists to 'reexamine their findings'.
That statement reveals your utter ignorance of the history of science.
Evolutionary scientists don't want to ever consider the possibility that the soft tissue found could be less than six thousand years old because then they have to consider the possibility that God exists
What do you know about the motivations of evolutionary biologists? You're just making up a fantasy to explain why the experts don't believe your other fantasy.
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Now are you going to tell me I haven't "really" considered it?
Re:Did Someon Call the Skeptic? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because normal Christian nuts are quite happy to accept that God created Evolution, and the Bible is not a science text book. On account of the incontravertible evidence
All the nonsense you are sprouting..... (Score:3, Insightful)
And later on by astronomers, geophysicists, climatologists, geneticists, etc, etc, etc, for crying out loud.
The science of compared anatomy isn't that new either, but by the nonsense you ejaculate one would suspect all the disciplines above are pulling all the millons of years of natural phenomena out of their un-skeptical asses, you would want us to forget they arrived to similar conclussion by different, independent observatio
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Perhaps because human made devices have no way of reproducing themselves with a chance of modification.
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Actually, we can trace the descent of modern automobiles from horse-drawn carriages by an elaborative process that in some respects resembles evolution, although because there was an intelligence behind the process it was far less wasteful than evolution by unintelligent variation an
The exception that proves the rule (Score:3, Informative)
"When Schweitzer demineralized the T. rex bone, she was surprised to find such a matrix, because current theories of fossilization held that no original organic material could survive that long."
The thought of course that the original material isn't all that old goes against the "old age" dogma of evolutionists and isn't even brought up as a possibility. If the creationists are right, who assert that the long ages of millions of years in reality are only thousand
Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:4, Funny)
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Ummmm, I'm having fried TRex for dinner tonight!
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Its entirely feasible for a large proportion to go that way, but a brontosaurus or triceratops are closer to being a whale than a pre-prehistoric A380.
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I don't think anyone has ever in their entire life assumed that, since dinosaurs were here a long time before birds.
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That is like taking a single generic sampling nowadays and taking that as representative of every living creature.
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They were mainstream in 1994 too. Even when I was a kid in the early eighties I remember seeing mainstream science programs constrasting the nimble warm-blooded dinosaurs with the old-school nineteenth century characterization a
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Shouldn't come as much of a surprise though. The film is fourteen years old, and the book older yet. At that time those concepts were "out there" - there was a lot of suspicion that they might be true, but precious little evid
Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:5, Interesting)
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John Ostrom of Yale University definitely supported the theory that birds might have evolved from a theropod dinosaur branch back in the early 1980's, I believe. Dr. Ostrom's ideas were then popularized by the publication of Dr. Robert Bakker's book "The Dinosaur Heresies", which is an interesting, colorful read, although admittedly Bakker doesn't always stick strictly to the science and he seems to rely too heavily on cladistic studies which don't take chronologies
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Yes. T. rex and Triceratops didn't evolve into birds (which is something stories like these make people think, unfortunately). Instead they share a common ancestor that was also a dinosaur, probably something closely related to dromaeosaurid dinosaurs (aka 'raptors'). However, T. rex and its ilk are more closely related to birds and share a common ancestor within a shorter timespan than Trice
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We would have a more accurate opinion of dinosaurs if we managed to c
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T-Rex the other white meat (Score:4, Funny)
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BREAKING NEWS! How the dinosaurs died (Score:2)
If you think T-Rex Wings is interesting (Score:2)
An interesting resolution... (Score:5, Funny)
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? T-Rex!
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Here comes the rooster (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Here comes the rooster (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Here comes the rooster (Score:5, Funny)
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All lifeforms have that look in their eye. That is, after all, the way of things.
Indeed, quite a few of those lifeforms are just biding their time, scurrying hungrily around our feet as we drunkenly enjoy our dominion.
We once scurried hungrily around the feet of the dinosaurs, you know. And the smart money is on the rodents to be the next rulers of the Earth.
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Since "tastes like chicken" has been done... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Since "tastes like chicken" has been done... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll give it a try.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two former drumsticks, turn'd to stone,
Stand in Wyoming. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And razor teeth and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those proteins read
Which yet survive, stamp'd in this lifeless thing,
The hand that mock'd them and the mouth that fed.
And in the fossil rock these words appear:
"My name is Tyrannosaur, Chicken King"
Look on my works, ye primates, and cluck!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal Rex, asteroid-fuck'd,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- With apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley. I think it's still a sonnet.
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Should probably be "go cluck" to get the metre correct.
Extremely funny, either way.
Of course it's like chicken... (Score:4, Funny)
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Darwinian Payback (Score:3, Interesting)
In a few tens of millions of years, tiny little human decedents will be eaten by large intelligent mice.
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Then, without warning, the 18-Wheeler tips over, while trying to go around on a clover-leaf, taking the turn too fast. The trailer flips over on it's side, and most, if not all, of the cages scatter on
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However, lots of neat theories are "evolving."
Please forgive me (Score:5, Funny)
Source of protein (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Source of protein (Score:5, Informative)
Organic preservation like this is still believed to be a rare phenominon, but I'd expect many more ancient fossils to be inspected for organic remains from now on. Too bad DNA is as unstable in the long term as it is, though.
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Heh. Too bad they didn't have prozac back then
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Why not just fill in the gaps with something similar. .
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As for petrification, that doesn't necessarily require millions of years. A couple dozen thousand years ought to do, which completely jibes with how old our spe
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If you get the drift, it's incompatible with science -- which is a systematic accumulation of principles and theories based on facts.
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And the thought of once-living tissue remaining viable for tens of millions of years was thought to be 'incompatible with science' as well.
Things change. Who knows what we'll know tomorrow.
This was covered a while back. (Score:2)
I feel certain it took a great many scientists a long time (and probably some illegal substances) to recover from the shock. This was most definitely not what they had expected. They
Argh, bad science reporting. (Score:5, Insightful)
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proved on Red Dwarf, anyway (Score:2)
http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/index.cfm?frameset=deck
click on pete part 2 link (needs realplayer -grrrrr)
-I'm just sayin'
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Three chromosomes for the maths-kings under the sky, [acm.org]
Seven for the Dinosaur-lords in their halls of chicken,
Nine for polyglutamine doomed to die, [inist.fr]
One for the pneumolysin on his dark throne [uct.ac.za]
In the Land of Slashdot where the Firehoses lie.
One Sequence to rule them all, One Sequence to find them,
One Sequence to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Slashdot where the Firehoses lie.
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Our current database of fully sequenced genomes is pathetically small, but most news outlets are reporting "T. rex was giant chicken!"
I've always preferred Robert Bakker's description: "A 10,000-pound roadrunner from hell."
Meep Meep!
I did my own dinosaur protein analysis... (Score:2)
in other news, foxes running from henhouses... (Score:3, Funny)
breeding farmer Clancy Hogtrough said, "Hail, all I wanted to do was slow down those three-legged chickens of mine. Never found out if they were tasty, cause we could never catch 'em."
we hope to re-establish our satellite link shortly for our live report from Cuddles Fernbreath....
Research confirms Chicken-Human Link! (Score:3, Interesting)
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I believe you mean 6 thousand years. God created dinosaurs, then he killed them all a few years later because they kept eating all the people, and as we all know, nothing makes God angrier than eating His image.
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You can always read articles to see what they say before you ask questions and make clueless conclusions. If you had read the original article you would see that they extract seven protein sequences from fossilized T. Rex tissue, then compared it to a number of modern and ancient organisms.
Who knew? (Score:2)
Tyro Rex Supersaur (seasonal) (Score:2, Funny)
VOICE OF GORGOS
Every time we excavate it bothers your friends
That you'd let the mammals be the cause of your end
Was it something special that we can't comprehend?
Why could you not stick around until the Age of Men?
If you came today you could have eaten whole nations
The Mesozoic era had no overpopulation
Don't you get me wrong - I only want to know.
CHOIR
Tyro Rex, Tyro Rex
Are you the best that Nature selects?
Tyro Rex, Supersaur
Why is it that you exist no more?
VOICE OF
Once upon a time (Score:2)
And right before the tyranasaur swallowed monkey, monkey chanted a curse, a curse that one day the tyranasaurs would become slaves to the monkey.
Original article (Score:3, Informative)
Here is it:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/58
Protein Sequences from Mastodon and Tyrannosaurus Rex Revealed by Mass Spectrometry
Here is a choice quote:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/31
Analyses of Soft Tissue from Tyrannosaurus rex Suggest the Presence of Protein
ObHicks (Score:5, Funny)
"I think God put you here to test my faith, Dude."
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Re: nice (Score:3, Insightful)
Hypothetical Question: If there was an all powerful designer, and he wanted to create a T-Rex and a chicken, would they not necessarilly be similar, just as this data shows? After all, you are dealing with very similar constraints
Since when do constraints apply to an all-powerful designer?
And why does that unevidenced designer use the same solution to similar problems sometimes, but very different solutions to similar problems at other times? Answer: "that's what he wanted to do". Any observation is compatible with the claim that an all-powerful Creator did it on a whim. Thus the claim is utterly useless as a way of understanding the nature of the universe.
To prove that one truly descended from the other, I think you need to see a descendency path will all the intermediate species.
Science isn't in the business of providing proofs; it's in the business of
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Yeah, same here. We have an yellow-headed Amazon and I've been convinced that if he's not a direct descendant of a dinosaur, he must be channeling one. It's an interesting coincidence that parrots are one of the earliest of modern birds to show up in fossil records.