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T. Rex Protein Analysis Supports Dinosaur-Bird Link
LanMan04 writes "For the first time, researchers have read the biological signature of a Tyrannosaur — a signature that confirms the increasingly accepted view that modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs. Analyzing the organic material (collagen protein) found inside the unique fossil linked the collagen to several extant species. The bottom line is that the T. rex's biological signature was most like a bird's, at least based on the first fragmentary data. "It looks like chicken may be the closest among all species that are present in today's databases for proteins and genomes," one of the scientists interviewed said."
I don't know whether to go with a "tastes like dinosaur" or "Chicken of Bristol" remark. Decisions, decisions.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
I, for one, welcome our flightless, warm-blooded, aviary-predecessing overlords.
I sat down to write a new sig tonight and all I did was make the chair warm.
"The Bible? Evolution put it there to test our stupidity."
"I think Evolution put you here to test my superiority, Dude."
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Hypothetical Question: If there was an all powerful designer, and he wanted to create a T-Rex and a chicken, would they not necessarilly be similar, just as this data shows? After all, you are dealing with very similar constraints (oxygen atmosphere for respiration, water needed for life, etc), the same programming language (DNA), and you want similar features in each organism (i.e. clawlike feet, etc). Wouldn't you need a lot more than a similarity to prove evolution and disprove God? You are going to see similarities between organisms based on constraints (and, if you assume creationsim, the fact that you have the same designer as well), so wouldn't you want to actually see the descendency path from the T-Rex to the chicken to prove an evolutionary link? In my opinion, saying a T-Rex shares a lot of similarities with a Chicken proves nothing except that they are similar. To prove that one truly descended from the other, I think you need to see a descendency path will all the intermediate species. After all, you can say Mars and the Earth are very similar, and indeed they are, but one didn't come from the other.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.