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3-D Fossils Found in Canada
smooth wombat writes "The BBC has a story with pictures of fossils found in Canada which are three dimensional. Even more interesting is that scientists consider the creatures, called rangemorphs, to be neither animal nor vegetable. In a related matter, geologists added the Ediacaran Period, in which these fossils lived, to their official history of Earth, the first new period to be added in 120 years."
If I had to take a swag, I'd say that the significance is that they're fossils of soft-bodied critters [um, or "thingies"] that were found in 3D, as most are squashed flat by the process that fossilized them.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
Read a story introduced by the title "3-D Fossils Found in Canada"? I'm as likely to read that as a story titled "New Pentium PC does arithmetic".
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Scientists are excited because this is a rare instance of a beautiful lifeform that has been petrified in media other than hot grits.
GMD
watch this
I've personally never encountered anything that had fewer than three spatial dimensions. But I'm sure what was meant was that the fossil was informative in all three dimensions.
There is no God
There is a God, but I don't know Her.
Logic, macros, and more
Also important is the fine detail preserved in the fossils, down to 30 micrometers.
Maybe applied mathematicians do it smoothly and continuously. Real mathematicians do it over the integers. :-)
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Think of common fossils like trilobytes or ammonites. They are preserved in 3D. Of course, they have exosceleton/shell.
New Scientist has an article about this very subject.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn ?
Why not fork?
No wonder all those dinosaurs died out, if they were 2-dimensional. I mean, how would they eat 3D plants?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Maybe it's a fruit?
A somewhat more informative article is
here
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
No no no: : x E N} Mathematicians do it over the integers.
: x E R} Mathematicians do it infinitely, and to prove it, they do it diagonally!
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YAY! Finally! We can take it to some random guy in some random company and revive it, where it will be used to battle other common animals and have a type advantage :D
I like muppets.
Upcoming Doctor Who episode:
Doctor Who and the Ediacarans
Yes, but is it correct arithmetic?
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Do you need special glasses to see them?
Well, if it's not an animal or vegetable, then it must be a mineral!
(Besides, it is a fossil)
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
..coming to a drive-in near you in glorious Three-Dee(tm)!
-psy
Does Chris Langton know about this? It appears that his cellular automata self-reproduction structures may have been right on the money!
Useful tool: http://www.complex.iastate.edu/information/downloa d/Trend/examples/langton.html
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
This is directly related to my thesis work, so I'll pretend to know what I'm talking about.
The main significance is that they're stunningly well-preserved examples of a fauna which predates the Cambrian Explosion - this might increase the chances that sensible attributions to extant animal phyla can ultimately be made.
One hears a lot of nonsense about the Ediacarans, but there's a substantial body of opinion that they're nothing more than Cnidarians - and possibly Cnidarian-like Ctenophore ancestors (ie, Jellyfish and Anemones). An explosion of these creatures probably predated the explosion of biomineralization which marked the Cambrian Boundary.
Of course you'll find people who argue for all sorts of bizzare interpretations of these thingies, but Simon Conway Morris has produced a really nice series of fossil Cnidarians (Cloudina, IIRC) which start in the Ediacaran and cross over the Cambrian boundary.
They're probably just Cnidarians, with a few Ctenophore-like things and sponges thrown in. Maybe if we're lucky they'll even find a worm-like bilateral ancestor.
Free your mind, open it to thought and ideas. You may not agree with them, I don't agree with religon, yet there is truth to some of the stories, morals.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Looks like a cedar branch to me. Old cedar.
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Right on. WTF?
Rampant Ninja related crimes these days...Whitehouse is not the exception
I've personally never encountered anything that had fewer than three spatial dimensions.
No? How about your shadow there on the floor? How many dimensions does it have?
I am a devout Christian, and I disagree with you.
/. is very much a secular forum. Making claims against the Bible isn't going to carry much weight among people who oftentimes don't even accept the Bible itself.
However, I like listening to other viewpoints. To that end, spelling might make your point sound better. The operative word is "blasphemy."
And
FWIW.
I've personally never encountered anything that had fewer than three spatial dimensions.
No? How about your shadow there on the floor? How many dimensions does it have?
Shadow are still in 3d don't forget it start's at your body and ends on the floor. And even if your only going to talk about that part of the shadow that hit's the floor it's still 3d as the floor is not flat. Nor is it of 0 depth. Not to mention shadows also have color or alleast variations in intensity as the boundary at the edge of shadows are fuzzy becouse there light sorces are not point sorces. So you can say there 4d or even 5d if you count Time.
Or better yet:
Pentium PC does your arithmetic
Then, I think, you'd have something.