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Chicken Genome Sequenced
Jonmann writes "The chicken (Gallus gallus) genome has been sequenced by the International Chicken Genome Sequencing Consortium. The new genome map provides new, more detailed clues as to how birds diverged from mammals in the course of evolution." I, for one, welcome our new 5-foot-tall, all-white-meat, pre-coated-with-tasty-batter chicken overlords.
Does that make anyone else scratch their head and wonder what other kind of downright stupid consortiums we have? I mean it's a noble cause, no doubt, but calling it a consortium feigns a certain amount of dignity to chicken research that I'm not prepared to give.
Q: How do you know when a joke has jumped the shark?
A: When even the Slashdot editors are making it!
Come on, they don't even read the site! It's like when your parents start using a slang term, you automatically realise that it's no longer cool.
Mammals are descended from cynodonts from therapsids (mammal-like reptiles) which descended from the synapsid reptiles, which descended from the early amniotes.
Birds are descended from theropods, one of the two groups of saurischian dinosaurs, from archosaurs, which descend from the diapsid reptiles, from amniotes. Notable theropods are the raptors, tyrannosaurus, and allosaurus, and of course, aves.
The sauropods also descended from the saurischian dinosaurs. Notable here are the thecodonts, brachisaurus, and diplodicus.
The ornithician dinosaurs descended from archosaurs as well. Notable here are ankylosaurus, stegosaurus, iguanadon, etc.
Other ancient lineages are the turtles (from anapsids, from amniotes), crocodilians (from the archosaurs), and modern reptiles and snakes (from diapsids).
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.