First-Ever Dinosaur Brain Tissue Found Preserved In a Pebble (sciencemag.org) 43
sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: A decade ago, a fossil hunter was combing the beach in southeastern England when he found a strange, brown pebble. The surface of it caught his eye: It was smooth and strangely undulating, and also slightly crinkly in some places. That oddly textured pebble, scientists report today, is actually an endocast -- an impression preserved in the rock -- that represents the first known evidence of fossilized brain tissue of a dinosaur (likely a close relative of Iguanodon, a large, herbivorous type of dinosaur that lived about 133 million years ago). Human brains and bird brains are packed tightly into the brain case, so that their convolutions leave an impression of the inside of the case. But dinosaur (and reptile) brains are more loosely fitted; they are surrounded within the brain case by membranes called meninges, tough sheaths that protect and support the brain. So an endocast of a dinosaur brain might be expected to show those structures -- and it did. But beneath them, remineralized in calcium phosphate, the researchers also spied a pattern of tiny capillaries and other cortical tissues -- the sort of fabric you'd expect for the cortex of a brain. That those textures were pressed up against the brain case doesn't necessarily mean that dinosaurs were bigger-brained and smarter than we thought, however: Instead, the dinosaur had likely simply toppled over and been preserved upside down, its brain tissue preserved by surrounding acidic, low-oxygen waters that pickled and hardened the membranes and tissues, providing a template for mineralization. The structure of the brain, studied with scanning electron microscopes, reveal similarities to both birds and crocodiles. The researchers reported their findings in a Special Publication of the Geological Society of London.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
No "Brain Tissue" was found preserved. It's a fossil dammit, a mineralized record of the shape of a brain.
This is Second Grade Stuff, and frankly I was expecting a lot better of BeauHD.
I'm not mocking BeauHD, I'm calling him out. This was a really inept Title.
Resign.
Re: (Score:2)
Upon reading the title, I was wondering how dinosaur brains got inside a pebble.
Re: size (Score:1)
He got stoned. (sunglasses)
Re: (Score:2)
I clicked on his name and saw the photo. He's still wet behind the ears...clearly qualified to be a /. editor.
Re: size (Score:2)
Can't be. Kids in the 80s didn't dress like that. And they certainly weren't as dumb as this.
Re: size (Score:2)
doc en pic's (Score:5, Informative)
Quote of Day (Score:2)
"I have five dollars for each of you." -- Bernhard Goetz
Best comeback line ever.
Re: (Score:2)
That's cool, Pebble (Score:3)
So those smartwatches are useful for something.
Re: (Score:2)
Must be a common thought, first thing that came to my mind was "would anyone notice the pebble if it contained Trump's brain or would it be too small".
Re: (Score:1)
Ignorant much? i suggest you read St Augustine's exegesis on book of Genesis ( written in 3rd century AD) to realize why you are called ignorant.
But i suppose born idiots like you prefer to stay ignorant in order to display their ignorance through silly attacks.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, I didn't know the history of people noticing the bible is wrong and trying to excuse it so their favorite fairy tale stays relevant is that old! I always thought it's a more recent development when we actually could prove that it's bunk.
Re: How about a fucking picture? (Score:2)
Those are at pornhub.
Re: (Score:2)
#mindfuck?
Re: (Score:2)
Rocks having sex? You're obviously on drugs.
All we need is "Roll" for the "Sex, drugs, rock and Roll" to be complete.
Small wonder (Score:2)
Small wonder that they died out with a pebble-sized brain.
Meninges! (Score:4, Insightful)
Human brains and bird brains are packed tightly into the brain case, so that their convolutions leave an impression of the inside of the case. But dinosaur (and reptile) brains are more loosely fitted; they are surrounded within the brain case by membranes called meninges, tough sheaths that protect and support the brain.
Good thing human brains don't have a meninges, otherwise we could get meningitis! Oh, wait.....
Re: (Score:2)
Must be a typo. Dinosaurs had ménage-et-trois.
What's not mentioned in the story... (Score:2)
is the bite taken out of the brain thus proving the long-dismissed hypothesis of dinosaur zombies.