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."
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.
Darwinian Payback (Score:3, Interesting)
In a few tens of millions of years, tiny little human decedents will be eaten by large intelligent mice.
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.
Source of protein (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:2, Interesting)
That is like taking a single generic sampling nowadays and taking that as representative of every living creature.
Research confirms Chicken-Human Link! (Score:3, Interesting)
Did Someon Call the Skeptic? (Score:1, Interesting)
http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/spr97/bird.html [unc.edu]
secondly, i'm not sold here. it may well do what they claim - or it might not.
what i want them to do is to take KNOWN species and run the same test to see if any known, distinct species *appear* to be descended from one another using their methodology.
seems easy enough to do, so why not do it? wouldn't it tell us how accurate the analysis is?
one needs to look at this data in context in order to properly value what it is telling us.
that context is absent from the article and, perhaps, from the study.
why limit it to fossils? again, why not test the veracity of this analysis against a number of knowns to see if the results reflect what we'd expect?
funny, everyone i heard trumpeting dinosaurs as obvious transitional entities to birds didn't use to say their belief was a mere hypothesis.
also, what were the differences found? did any of the results match anything else? what came in second and how close in second was it? did it have any similarities to fish?
i'm afraid that scientists have lost the valuable trait of skepticism when it comes to this kind of thing. a little data comes in and it is trumpeted without much effort to question it or provide context.
if you didn't click the first time i posted it, click this time:
http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/spr97/bird.html [unc.edu]
no, it isn't a right wing religious diatribe. it is a skeptical scientist that believes in macro-evolution who has the integrity to question what everyone so dearly wants to be true.
Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:3, Interesting)
We would have a more accurate opinion of dinosaurs if we managed to completely dispel the lizard myth. They are no more lizards than mammals are lizards.
After we do that, we also need to redefine genus Avis. How we still classify birds as non-dinosaurs escapes me (though I also think it's pathetic that Humans aren't classified as apes). It seems that you have a pretty clear line. Fish -> Amphibian -> Reptile -> -> Dinosaur -> Bird. Just as we are Fish -> Amphibian -> Reptile -> Mammal-like-reptile -> Mammal. I guess it's all a sort of trouble with the taxon system. We tend to view certain animals as a species rather than the continuation of a gene pool that may or may not have branched off to other gene pools.
Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park... (Score:2, Interesting)
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 easily. Bending moments are a little more complicated, but stresses still increase faster than strength as size increases.
The smaller dinos were undoubtedly quick and agile, though.