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3-D Fossils Found in Canada

Posted by michael on from the rocky-road dept.

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."

3 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Maybe someone can tell me what the story... by bandy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
  2. Re:Maybe someone can tell me what the story... by Madcapjack · · Score: 2, Insightful
    ...really is about rather than the pop-science version. After all, fossils have been 3D since the dawn of time - well, almost anyway.

    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
  3. Langton was right! by Randym · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The finds show that the organisms were assembled in fractal patterns from frond-like building blocks. They were unable to move and had no reproductive organs, perhaps reproducing by dropping off new fronds .

    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.