Fossils – Page 82

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Slowing Down the Cambrian Explosion

April 14, 2004

“Although the cause of the Cambrian radiation is unknown,” states a story in Science Now, maybe it wasn’t as rapid as previously thought. Bruce Lieberman (U. of Kansas) is toying with the idea that trilobites, those icons of the Cambrian era, radiated into various ecological niches 65 million years earlier than the ~520 million year […]

Dinosaurs

How Could Polar Dinosaurs Survive Freezing, Darkness?

March 29, 2004

Dinosaur fossils have been found in the northern and southern polar regions.

Geology

Rethinking the Geological Layers

March 5, 2004

One of the most formative ideas in Darwin’s intellectual journey was the concept of gradualism, the principle of “small agencies and their cumulative effects.” This idea became a dominant motif in his philosophy of life. Describing how the assumption of gradualism permeated his last book (on earthworms) shortly before his death, Janet Browne, in her […]

Fossils

Oldest Fossil Insect Alleged

February 11, 2004

In a pattern that sounds familiar, an insect fossil has been found that (1) is the oldest ever discovered, and (2) shows that “winged flight may have emerged earlier than previously thought.” Estimates put this fossil at about 400 million years old, among the first creatures to colonize the land. Though wing impressions were not […]

Dating Methods

Hundreds of Whales Buried Suddenly in Diatoms

February 2, 2004

A remarkable fossil find has been found in Peru: 346 whales buried in diatomaceous earth. The preservation of the whales is so pristine and complete, the authors of the paper in the Feb. 2004 issue of Geology1 conclude that the whales had to be buried rapidly, in days or weeks. If so, it represents a […]

Fossils

Extinction Puzzle Explained as Selection Effect

February 1, 2004

It’s not evolution, it’s statistics. That’s the conclusion of Robert Scotland and Michael Sanderson in the Jan. 30 issue of Science. What’s the puzzle? When biodiversity is examined in the context of species richness, a consistent feature emerges: Most taxonomic groups are species-poor, relatively few are species-rich, and the frequency distribution has the shape of […]

Fossils

La Brea Tar Pits Trap Scientists

January 24, 2004

Visitors to the La Brea Tar Pits are not told the whole truth about the fossils.

Fossils

Fossil Worm: Does It Help Solve Cambrian Explosion Puzzle?

January 14, 2004

A soft embryo of a Cambrian worm, exquisitely preserved, makes Graham Budd (U. of Uppsala, Sweden) ask some hard questions about it and other recently-discovered embryo fossils in the Jan. 15 issue of Nature:1 These fossils raise several questions, to say the least. First, how could they possibly be preserved? Second, why are they concentrated […]

Fossils

Chinese Puzzle: New Primate Fossil Raises Eyebrows

January 1, 2004

A new fossil primate skull from China, alleged to be 55 million years old, provides “much-needed substantial evidence of early primates in Asia,” says Robert Martin (Field Museum, Chicago), reporting in the Jan. 1 issue of Nature.1 But “interpretation of the creature’s eye size and activity pattern,” he says, “will spark debate.” (This is code […]

Fossils

Despite New Fossil, Origin of Marsupials Still Puzzles Evolutionists

December 12, 2003

Although the earliest known marsupial has just been found in China1, Richard L. Cifelli and Brian M. Davis, writing in the Dec. 12 issue of Science2 consider the phylogenetic trees of marsupial and placental mammals conflicting and puzzling. Problems include (emphasis added): Switcheroo: Fossil marsupials are predominately found in North America, but living ones are […]

Fossils

New Record-Setting Living Fossil Flabbergasts Scientists

December 5, 2003

A remarkably-detailed fossil ostracode, a type of crustacean, has been announced in the Dec. 5 issue of Science1 that is blowing the socks off its discoverers. Erik Stokstad in a review of the discovery in the same issue2 explains its significance in the evolutionary picture of prehistory: Over the past half-billion years, evolution has dished […]

Fossils

Got That? The Complex Story of African Mammal Evolution

December 3, 2003

The article by Jean-Jacques Jaeger in the Dec. 4 issue of Nature1 is pretty upbeat about the evolutionary history of African mammals, but takes a bit of untangling to follow. He begins confidently, “For some 40 million years, the Afro-Arabian landmass existed in splendid isolation. A newly described fossil fauna from the end […]

Fossils

Fossil Fingers Fuddle Phylogeny

December 3, 2003

Another fossil complicates the evolutionists’ picture of tetrapod origins (see Aug 9 headline). Chinese paleontologists have reported1 a new marine reptile from Triassic strata (242 million years old, more or less). Unexpectedly, it has extra digits (a condition called polydactyly) just like the putative ancestors of tetrapods from the earlier Devonian strata (370-354 million years […]

Dinosaurs

Dinosaur Family Tracks Discovered

December 2, 2003

A set of dinosaur tracks of different sizes pointing in the same direction has been found on the Isle of Skye, reports the BBC News. It seems to indicate one adult and 10 juveniles, all of the same species, were moving together. To Neil Clark, curator of the Glasgow Museum, these tracks tell a story […]

Darwin and Evolution

Evolution As Assumption

December 20, 2002

51; Reasoning requires premises: axioms or truths taken for granted. Notice the premise of reasoning stated in a recent article on Science Daily: “Because all living organisms inherit their genomes from ancestral genomes, computational biologists at MIT reasoned that they could use modern-day genomes to reconstruct the evolution of ancient microbes.” They used an evolutionary […]

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