Oldest Embryonic Dinosaur Bones Discovered

Scientists digging in China have discovered the earliest fossil embryos to date. The find includes
remains from many animals at different stages of development providing a unique opportunity to investigate the embryonic development of a prehistoric species.

the fossils were discovered in a bone bed in Lufeng County that dates to the Early Jurassic between 197 million to 190 million years ago.  The site contained more than 200 various bones as well as pieces of fossilized eggshells.

To put this discovery in perspective most of the dinosaur embryos on record are concentrated in the Late Cretaceous period.  This discovery  takes a detailed record of dinosaur embryology and pushes it back over 100 million years!

From the Nature.com article:

• But it is not just the age of the fossils that is notable, the researchers say. Spectroscopic analysis of bone-tissue samples from the Chinese nesting site revealed the oldest organic material ever seen in a terrestrial vertebrate.

Holiday Feasting! Alternative Menu Items?!

The Christian holiday menus are in a funk.  Come on, you know it's a fact!  Turkey, Ham or pork, maybe the vegetarians have it right.  Well lets discount for a moment that vegi-burgers many not be on everyone's menu and do some speculating. 

With that in mind, there are reasons that these choices in meats were made.  For the most part they are mild flavored for the most part.  Meat often takes on the taste of what the animal eats.  There is a reason that carnivore meats are not at the top of meats consumed.  

This round about way to menu choices then brings us to a PopSci article asking the rather intriguing question - what kind of dinosaur meat would taste the best!  As in today's diet, carnivore meat would most likely be off the menu.  Fat contributes a lot to the flavor of the meat and what an animal eats flavors the fat.  It becomes quickly clear why, now and it was then, the meat eaters were not good eating.

However if we think of the types eaten now - cow, deer, bison perhaps, we see the palate leans toward grass and grain fed.  T-Rex for all it's supposed glamorous nature, has been found to have jaw abnormalities which suggests diseases from eating rotten meat which also suggests that the meat would be heavily laden with parasites.  It does not take much to consider how a Rex would taste...bleh.

Many theories suggest that dino meat would taste like chicken because of the close ties to modern birds.  However the Pop Sci article suggests that many of the land going dinos would be closer to beef.  

The article goes on to consider slow vs fast twitch muscle fibers and fast and slow activity to suggest what  meat would be like on certain animals and go on to make some interesting conclusions.

Read the Pop Sci article here to see if your mouth starts to water...lol    

Possibly Oldest Dino Uncovered

Paleontologists have discovered the bones of a 240 million years old dino, little larger than a domestic dog.   This discovery pushes back the appearance of dinosaurs at least 10 million years.  

This discovery at the very least could change researchers’ views of how dinosaurs evolved.

The fossils first came to light in the 1930s   and studied for decades by the paleontologist Alan Charig, 

until he died in 1997.  He named the animal Nyasasaurus,  but never published his conclusions as to the true genus of the animal.  Many of the other specimens from the same strata at the Tanzania’s Manda Beds, were very close relatives of the dinosaurs.  So close in fact that  the "sister taxon" is closest it can be to a dinosaur without actually being one.

Examining Nyasasaurus closer uncovered traits of both dinosaurs as well as the sister group.   A  team of paleontologists at the University of Washington, Seattle,lead by Sterling Nesbitt, carried out a systematic comparison of the bones.  They found that Nyasasaurus, bones contained a number of characteristics that belong to true dinosaurs.  

For more, check out the Wired com article  or the Science Now article here

Dinosaurs!!! Symphony of Science

Here we have another in the ongoing experiment of putting scientific discussion to music courtesy of Symphony of Science.

Here is the blurb that SOS has onsite describing their newest offering.

• The 14th Symphony of Science video is out today!! "The World of the Dinosaurs" is a musical celebration dinosaurs, their habits, extinction, and our methods of learning about them. Featuring Alice Roberts, Bill Nye, Nigel Marvin, Dallas Campbell and more.

Dino Fleas!

Listener Dan pointed me towards this AP article concerning a parasitic life-form that plagued land dwelling animals 125 to 165 million years ago as they continue to do today. Fleas, a bane today as they were millions of years ago. Though fleas today are a far cry from the monsters that plagued early dinosaurs. The ancient pests were gigantic by today's reference - being almost and inch across - with females twice as large as males!

Paleontologists from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology in China say that the prehistoric fleas had:

• disproportionately long proboscis, or straw-like mouth, had sharp weapon-like serrated edges that helped them bite and feed from their super-sized hosts

One thing these monsters didn't have was well developed legs, so they didn't have the fantastic jumping ability that modern fleas do today.  Crawling was the order of the day

- full Huffington Post article -

Jack Horner Wants a Pet Dino?!

Here is paleontologist Jack Horner giving a presentation at TED. Horner suggest that they are close to reverse engineering dinosaurs using chickens. Hummm yes it would seem that we do indeed have a Jurassic Park moment in the making!

As far fetched as it sounds, the TED presentation is very engaging. As you can see I have embedded the video below. And here is the link to the IO9 article that gave me the heads up.

230 Million year old 4' dinosaur - predicessor to T-Rex

New research has unveiled a previously unknown carnivorous dinosaur from 230 million years ago, making it one of two of the earliest dinosaurs known. Dubbed Eodromaeus, the pint sized two legged animal fills an important niche in the story of early dinosaur evolution. Eodromaeus is the second fossil found in the same area in the same strata of rock. Almost identical to Eoraptor uncovered in the early 1990s, Eodromaeus shows evidence of being a meat eater while Eoraptor was quite possibly a plant eater. These two dinosaurs, almost identical but actually two separate species puts them both at the very dawn of dinosaur evolution when plant eaters split from their carnivorous cousins. Though the genetic lineages would continue for another 165 million years, Eodromaeus was paving the way for the mega-meat - eaters like Tyrannosaurus rex, while Eoraptor's linage led to the big plant eaters like Diplodocus and Apatosaurus.

Reuters article Mail Online article

Thanks to Dan for the Article

How Did Dinosaurs Evolve Flight?

Tim Sayell sends in an article from Yahoo news that I think everyone will find interesting. The article lays out discoveries that may lead to how dinosaurs evolved flight behavior.

The research centers around reconstructing the brains of extinct birds. Researchers are attempting to discern when birds started down the road from land animals to ones of the air.

Most evidence to date suggests that this process took place around 150 million years ago but the critical part missing is at what point did the "bird" finally make the break towards true flight.

From the Yahoo article:

Scientists in Scotland are focusing on changes in the size of a part of the rear of the brain. This part of the cerebellum, known as the flocculus, is responsible for integrating visual and balance signals during flight, allowing birds to judge the position of other objects in midflight.....

Being able to understand when this structure changed will give researchers a clearer idea when flight first took place.

Researchers feel that an understanding of how the flocculus has evolved to deal with different flying abilities will give them new understanding about when birds first evolved the power of flight. To this end, they will study both birds that fly and those that have lost the ability, both extinct and present day.

Again, from the article:

The researchers are looking for a link between a larger flocculus and a greater ability to process the visual and balance signals during flight. If the relationship is proven, it could mark a major step forward in understanding bird evolution, and even might help resolve the controversy over whether some ancient bird-like fossils were truly those of dinosaurs or simply of birds that lost the power of flight.

Researchers Certain: Chicxulub event did wipe out the dinowsaurs

In a review, published online March 4 in Science, a team consisting of 41 researchers, have decided that the 30 year old paper by father and son research team Luis and Walter Alvarez, was indeed, a massive asteroid that slammed into Earth, creating Chicxulub Crater on Mexico's Gulf Coast, that killed off many of the species on the planet, including the non-avian dinosaurs.

The team looked at:

Volcanism that produced the great Deccan Trap formation, and Multiple asteroid impacts, involved in the extinction event, and concluded that these possible causes are to inconclusive and in some instances may actually made conditions on Earth MORE favorable for life.

Read the complete article in Scientific American here

New Dinosaurs found at Utah's Dinosaur National Monument

Dinosaur National Monument continues to be a treasure trove of undiscovered dinosaur species.

Recent discoveries in sand stone deposits have proved extremely rare. Two complete sauropod skulls of previously unknown animals, possibly over 105 million years old.

From the Yahoo News article:

• The new species is called Abydosaurus mcintoshi. Researchers say it's part of the larger brachiosaurus family, hulking four-legged vegetarians that include sauropods

The skulls are so intact that new clues can be determined about how this species of dinosaurs ate. A. Mcintoshi had short conical teeth. Not designed for chewing but for grabbing and swallowing.

Read more about the new dinosaur discoveries at Yahoo News

Thanks to Tim Sayell

Asteroid Couldn't Have Killed The Dinosaurs?!

IO9 in it's never ending quest to shake up everything we thought we knew, has posted an extremely compelling article about Princeton geo-scientist Gerta Keller. Keller's research has new evidence to support her alternative theory that volcanoes, not meteorites, wiped out the dinosaurs.

Now I know, this isn't strictly speaking new stuff here, but what makes this article very interesting is that it is backed up with some serious research. Keller's research shows that far from wiping out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, not a single species went extinct after the Yucatan event. In fact there may have been as much as 300,000 years between the impact and the extintion event.

From the article:

• Keller suggests that the massive volcanic eruptions at the Deccan Traps in India may be responsible for the extinction, releasing massive amounts of dust and gases that could have blocked sunlight, altered climate and caused acid rain.

read complete article here

Volcanoes May Have Killed the Dinosaurs?!

For the last 30 years, the prevailing theory has been that an asteroid, around six miles across, hit the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago, throwing debris into the atmosphere, blocking the sun and chilling the planet to the point that nearly half of all species went extinct. Ah but here's the rub, recent discoveries can not tie a single extinction event to the Yucatan / Chicxulub event.

Evidence is accumulating that it wasn't an asteroid that did the beasts in, but volcanoes. Volcanic events lasting almost 10,000 years, laying down miles deep deposits and throwing more that 10 times the amount of more climate-changing emissions into the atmosphere than the asteroid impact. Also supporting the volcanic theory is fossil evidence from Texas and Mexico that most of the species extinctions coincided with the final pulse of eruptions, not with the asteroid impact, which may have occurred approximately 300,000 years earlier.

There is even evidence that dinosaurs lived in India (where the massive eruptions occurred) right up to the last phase of the volcanic event - but not afterward.

The argument against of course is that there is volcanism, there was volcanism and there always will be.... so volcanism alone is not in and of itself unique. However the asteroid impact was and therefor can not be dismissed out of hand.

<- read more in Wired ->

Dinosaur Soft Tissue Find Proves False

In 2005 researchers apparently found soft, pliable tissues had been recovered from dissolved dinosaur bones. But new finding suggests that the supposed dinosaur tissue is in reality biofilm.

The original research claimed the discovery of blood vessels and what appeared to be entire cells inside fossil bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex. The scientists had dissolved the bone in acid, leaving behind the blood vessel- and cell-like structures.

As the article in Science Daily puts it:

• But in a paper published July 30 in PloS ONE, a journal of the open-access Public Library of Science, Kaye and his co-authors contend that what was really inside the T. rex bone was slimy biofilm created by bacteria that coated the voids once occupied by blood vessels and cells.

<- Science Daily ->

Chicxulub Impact May Have "Burned" Carbon In Earth's Crust

It's well documented that the Chicxulub impact happened about 65 million years ago. From this impact, it has been determined that material from this impact that laid down a thin layer of iridium -- an element more likely to be found in Solar System asteroids than in the Earth's crust. What isn't well know or for that matter all that well understood is a layer just above the iridium that consists of carbon. And carbon of an unusual structure. Each granule of carbon is a sphere called a cenospheres. What makes these carbon globes unusual is that it is well known that they only are formed when carbon is subjected to intense burning tempratures, such as thoses in power plants etc. Carbon cenospheres are a classic indicator of industrial activity. The first appearance of the carbon cenospheres defines the onset of the industrial revolution. Since there is little chance that there were power plants burning coal 65 million years ago, these cenospheres have proved to be a bit of a mystery. Now scientists from the U.S., U.K., Italy, and New Zealand have released a study that suggests that the Chicxulub impact was so powerful that it pulverized and liquified the carbon in the Earth's crust, subjecting it to such pressure and tempratures that it formed structures identical to those formed by modern day buring of coal.

Read complete article here in Science Daily online

Large Asteroid Breakup May Have Caused Mass Extinction On Earth 65 Million Years Ago

from sciencedaily.com:

The impactor believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs and other life forms on Earth some 65 million years ago has been traced back to a breakup event in the main asteroid belt. A joint team of researchers suggests that the parent object of asteroid (298) Baptistina (was) disrupted when it was hit by another large asteroid, creating numerous large fragments that would later create the Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan Peninsula as well as the prominent Tycho crater found on the Moon. At approximately 170 kilometers in diameter and having characteristics similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, the Baptistina parent body resided in the innermost region of the asteroid belt when it was hit by another asteroid estimated to be 60 kilometers in diameter. This catastrophic impact produced what is now known as the Baptistina asteroid family, a cluster of asteroid fragments with similar orbits. The team investigated the origins of the 180 kilometer diameter Chicxulub crater, which has been strongly linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Studies of sediment samples and a meteorite from this time period indicate that the Chicxulub impactor had a carbonaceous chondrite composition much like the well-known primitive meteorite Murchison. This composition is enough to rule out many potential impactors but not those from the Baptistina family.

Click the article title or here for the complete story (art by Don Davis)

NASA lacks funds to find killer asteroids

NASA officials say the space agency is capable of finding nearly all the asteroids that might pose a devastating hit to Earth, but there isn't enough money to pay for the task so it won't get done.

The cost to find at least 90 percent of the 20,000 potentially hazardous asteroids and comets by 2020 would be about $1 billion, according to a report NASA will release later this week. The report was previewed Monday at a Planetary Defense Conference in Washington.

Congress in 2005 asked NASA to come up with a plan to track most killer asteroids and propose how to deflect the potentially catastrophic ones.

These are asteroids that are bigger than 460 feet in diameter -- slightly smaller than the Superdome in New Orleans.

The agency is already tracking bigger objects, at least 3,300 feet in diameter, that could wipe out most life on Earth, much like what is theorized to have happened to dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

But even that search, which has spotted 769 asteroids and comets -- none of which is on course to hit Earth -- is behind schedule. It's supposed to be complete by the end of next year.