Scientists Find Preserved Dodo Bird Bones

nz17 writes "BBC News is reporting that a team of Dutch and Mauritian scientists have found what appears to be a mass dodo bird grave. From the article: 'Little is known about the dodo, a famous flightless bird thought to have become extinct in the 17th century. No complete skeleton has ever been found in Mauritius, and the last full set of bones was destroyed in a fire at a museum in Oxford, England, in 1755.'"

SEND IN THE CLONES!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be neat if we could clone the birds somehow, I'm not sure if that's possible any more, but maybe in the marrow or something...

Just curious

[Mostly a lurker]

No complete skeleton has ever been found in Mauritius, and the last full set of bones was destroyed in a fire at a museum in Oxford, England, in 1755.'

Where did the skeleton destroyed in a fire in 1755 originally come from?

Re:"To challenge our faith"? More like a flood

[Belseth]

It was apparently one hell of a flood given it not only managed to mimic sedimentary layers hundreds of million to billion years old but there were apparently volcanos errupting during the flood since there have been a number of bones found in volcanic ash. Also apparently the earth was really really crowded before the flood.

Now this flood deal, the science of Waterworld aside, where did all that water go? If the earth has been realitively unchanged in the last six thousand years as they claim where did it go? The water tied up in all the glaciers would raise the oceans a couple of hundred feet. Not even enough to cover the majority of the US. A number of states would even be high and dry. According to the bible even the highest mountains were covered. Everest is nearly 30,000 feet above sea level. Any event that could remove that much water from the surface would sterilize the planet and leave a comet the size of the moon. There isn't enough ground water to account for it either.

Untruths are easy to spot they tend to be houses of cards with easily found holes. The difference between Intellegent Design and Evolution is whatever holes there are in Evolution they are slowly being filled. They same holes will still be there in a thousand years that there are now in Intellegent Design.

I live in Mauritius. Messy situation recently

[simpleguy]

I live in Mauritius. There is word that a team of researchers, mostly foreigners, recently-discovered Dodo bones on a dig site at Mare aux Songes. These bones are said to have been sent to Holland without authorisation from some local authorities who deal with issues of National Heritage. It was not known if these remains were stolen or sent abroad secretly.

Now, at least we know where the remains are.

Note: Till date, not enough bones have been found to build a complete Dodo skeleton.

Re:I live in Mauritius. Messy situation recently

[Ironsides]

These bones are said to have been sent to Holland without authorisation from some local authorities who deal with issues of National Heritage. It was not known if these remains were stolen or sent abroad secretly.

Third possibility:
The reasearchers didn't inform the bureaucrats because they didn't think they needed to?

Re:SEND IN THE CLONES!!!

[LnxAddct]

There have been 6 mass extinctions in earth's history. The first one wiped out around 85% of species and is attributed to rapid global cooling, this happened around 443 millions years ago. The second one (354 million years ago) wiped out around 70% of life and is attributed to rapid climate change and also anoxia from an algae-like species overpopulating and depleting the oceans of oxygen and other necessary things. Right before the dinosaurs came into town (295 million years ago), 95% (yes that is a 9 and a 5, pretty significant number, eh?) of species became extinct through a bolide impact, this opened up a ton of niches for new species to flourish. Not only did it lead to the dinosaurs but it led to more variety of species than ever before. Right between the triassic and jurassic periods, an extinction happened that killed 45% of animals, the dinosaurs survived this one (206 million years ago) and the cause of it is still being debated but may have resulted from abnormal levels of volcanism. The dinosaurs didn't make it through the next extinction which killed 65% of life on earth from a bolide impact that also led to rapid climate change, tsunamis, earthquakes and increased volcanism. That was 65 million years ago. The 6th mass extinction is happening today, and yea unfortunately its mostly due to us, but honestly its jsut the cyclical nature of life. Every couple hundred million years species start going extinct like crazy and the causes have varied, this time its us. We shouldn't necessarily go out of our way and discomfort ourselves because regardless of what we do, everything is going to hell anyway. I'd love to get into more detail but I have family to attend to.
Regards,
Steve

Re:ratings???

[dirtydog]

WTF over? I posted this to the MSNBC thread - BEFORE the dodo bird thread was even active.

Mauritius is an interesting place.

[jd]

A direct ancestor of mine - James Duncan - restored the Garden of Pamplemousses in 1849. There's very little historical record of the man, or of what he did there, but they do have a nice plaque mentioning him. Somewhere. Unless something has eaten it.

Mauritius is also famous for having a great many highly endangered species. (Think numbers in the single digits.) They're also infamous of having released some, after rebuilding the population in captivity, only for the locals to devour them back out of existence.

The entire island is heavily overpopulated with humans, the environmental concerns are badly neglected (or deliberately overlooked), yet the biodiversity that still exists - albeit in captivity in hopelessly underfinanced, understaffed, underequipped shelters* - exceeds that of virtually the entire USA combined.

*By this, I do not mean they can't go and buy a billion dollar gadget once a week. Accounts usually depict the staff involved in saving the native species as being borderline starvation cases, constantly under threat of one kind or another - particularly of malicious closure, and probably earn less in a month than a kid in a Nike sweatshop can make in an hour.

It is precisely because of conditions like that that I am not the least bit surprised that Dutch scientists would have smuggled out anything they could. You know what? I'm not the least bit sorry for Mauritius. When you treat scientists with enough contempt - hey, scientists are human too, and even the most professional will eventually return the compliment.

I doubt anything will change - except maybe for the worse - in my lifetime. My only hope is that there is something left to salvage by the time attitudes change.

Re:Well

[drinkypoo]

99% of vegans have to take huge amounts of supplements to be healthy because their all-vegetable diet doesn't provide, well, basically anything they need. They also have to eat huge meals, or very monotonous ones, because it's hard to get enough protein from eating plants.

Also some interesting research has been surfacing and it seems that soy (one of the most frequently eaten veggie foods due to versatility - over 2/3 of the soy running around the world is GM, though) is not particularly good for men. A UHawaii study showed an increased alzheimer's risk. The issue with it is that the plant's hormones are highly similar to estrogen...

The best argument for humans as omnivores is that our body is not only clearly designed to consume and digest meat as well as plants, but that our body is clearly not designed to digest only plants. Our stomach in particular is poorly designed for the job. Humans are omnivores and any attempt to diverge from that path is certain to be fraught with trouble.

Granted, you can eat whatever the hell you want, and I won't care. But I think the point that vegetarianism is silly is as well-made. Both plants and animals practice evolutionary chemical warfare against one another, which is fun to think about. About the only good argument for vegetarianism or veganism is one of impact. It takes a lot more cropland to raise animals (ineffiency is everywhere) and agriculture is the single largest factor of human impact on the earth, more than greenhouse gas emissions or nuclear waste. Egypt used to be green! Over time humanity is converting Terra into a desert, and the mechanism used to do it is called agriculture.