Fossils

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Farewell, Cannibal Dino

September 20, 2002

Whoops, We Were Wrong Dept.: Fossils of Coelophysis found in 1947 included members of the same species in the stomach, so they were cannibals, right? Not so fast, corrects an article in BBC News. The food now looks more like filet of crocodile. After re-examining the evidence, researchers from Columbia University and the American Museum […]

Early Man

Dmanisi Homo erectus Fossil Count Grows

September 20, 2002

More bones matching the skulls from the purported Eurasian Homo erectus skulls in Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia have been found (for background, see 08/31/2005 bullet 5, 03/20/2005, 08/01/2002, 11/29/2002). The find was reported in Nature1 with commentary by Daniel Lieberman in the same issue.2 The bones, including ribs, leg bones and arm bones, fingers and […]

Dinosaurs

Waltzing with Dinosaurs

September 20, 2002

51; An international team of paleontologists wrote a kind of “State of the Tyrannosaur Address” in Science last week,1 boasting about all that is known of these creatures: Tyrannosaurs, the group of dinosaurian carnivores that includes Tyrannosaurus rex and its closest relatives, are icons of prehistory. They are also the most intensively studied extinct dinosaurs, […]

Amazing Facts

Big Bird Was Scary

September 20, 2002

51; A giant fossil bird with a serrated-edge beak was found in Chile, reported Science Daily, PhysOrg, Live Science, and New Scientist. The projections on its beak look like teeth but are not true teeth. They probably helped the sea bird hold onto fish. The artist reconstruction gives the bird a scary-looking demeanor. […]

Fossils

Cambrian Explosion Still Explosive

August 20, 2002

51; Two new papers about Cambrian and Precambrian fossils did nothing to help soften the blow of the Cambrian explosion – the sudden appearance of all the animal body plans in the geological blink of an eye. They essentially restated the problem for Darwin, who hoped that fossil discoveries would fill in the gaps where […]

Fossils

Soft Squid Ink Sac Claimed to Be 150 Million Years Old

August 20, 2002

51; The BBC News announced the discovery of a fossil squid with its ink sac still intact. “The fossil, thought to be 150 million years old, was found when a rock was cracked open, revealing the one-inch-long black ink sac.” The ink has been sent to Yale for analysis. An article on the Daily Mail […]

Darwin and Evolution

A Hairy Evolution Story

May 20, 2002

51; A mammal hair was found in amber. It is claimed to be 100 million years old, but it is identical to modern mammal hair. What is the meaning of this find? How should it be interpreted? It may say more about the modern evolutionist than about evolution itself. New Scientist told the […]

Fossils

Can Molecular Clock Relativity Explain the Cambrian Explosion?

April 20, 2002

Evolutionists seem to believe in a general theory of biological relativity: molecular clocks run at different rates depending on the conditions. Six Dartmouth College researchers set out to estimate the time when the first bilaterally symmetric animals emerged – the ancestor of humans, vertebrates, worms and everything with two halves. This event must have occurred, […]

Dinosaurs

Ichthyosaurs Suddenly Appeared in Triassic Oceans

April 20, 2002

“Ichthyosaurs were a group of Mesozoic marine reptiles that evolved fish-shaped body outlines,” begins Ryosuke Motani (UC Davis) in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences,1 in a paper on “Evolution of Fish-Shaped Reptiles… in Their Physical Environments and Constraints.” But while much is said about their environments and constraints, little is said to […]

Dumb Ideas

Evolution Rules

March 20, 2002

51; It would be convenient if all a scientist had to do to prove his theory was declare it to be a law of nature. Is that what scientists from UC Berkeley and Imperial College have done with evolution? “First ‘rule’ of evolution suggests that life is destined to become more complex,” announced a press […]

Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs of the Month

February 20, 2002

The tools of paleontologists continue to turn up interesting things. Here are some of the latest dinosaur discoveries reported this month: Mighty mouth: An African theropod with massive, shark-like teeth was found in the African Sahara, reported National Geographic News and PhysOrg. It was named Eocarcharia dinops, or “fierce-eyed dawn shark.” Another similar individual, presumed […]

Fossils

Fish Gill Evolves toward Tetrapod Ear?

January 20, 2002

“This is another nail in the coffin of the creationist view, in my opinion,” said the curator of Chicago’s Field Museum about a paper published in Nature,1 reported the Washington Post yesterday (see MSNBC News). Brazeau and Ahlberg of Uppsala University in Sweden examined the skull of Panderichthys, a Devonian lobe-finned fish, and found what […]

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