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The 300 Million Year Old Brain
Pickens writes "Paleontologists recently discovered the world's oldest brain nestled within a 300-million-year-old fish fossil of one of the extinct relatives of modern ratfishes, also known as 'host sharks' or chimaeras. These chimaera relatives, called iniopterygians, represented bizarre beasts that sported massive skulls with huge eye sockets, shark-like teeth in rows, tails with clubs, huge pectoral fins that were placed almost on their backs, and bone-like spikes or hooks tipping the fins. The brain shows details such as a large vision lobe and optic nerve stretching to the proper place on the braincase, which fits with the fish's large eye sockets. The ear canals of the extinct fish only exist on a horizontal plane so the fish could only detect side-to-side movements, and not up or down. 'There is nothing like this known today; it is really bizarre,' said John Maisey, paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. 'But now that we know that brains might be preserved in such ancient fossils, we can start looking for others. We are limited in information about early vertebrate brains, and the evolution of the brain lies at the core of vertebrate history.'"
That it escaped all the zombies from back then. Dinosaur zombies.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
The brain in question is pretty small compared to the brain case. Since brain case size is the main method of telling how large a brain an animal had this is going to suggest some possible need to reevaluate that technique's accuracy beyond providing an upper bound on brain size.
It was transported there by rail of course. Airplanes didn't exist way back when earth that makes up Kansas was underwater.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Please. Also known as ghost sharks makes a little more sense.
I am hoping they can apply the results of this research to finding brains in Senators and Congressmen
It was stranded there after God flooded the Earth. Really. :)
Cheers,
Greg
those huge eye sockets may interfere with standard laser mounts
Igor: Yes, I believe that is what the label said. Maybe Aby Normal...
Large eyes might correlate with needing to see in the dark THESE days, but we can't really make that assumption about other times without (at least) hard statistics. It could be, for example, that all eyes were large eyes, until small eyes evolved.
We are limited in information about early vertebrate brains, and the evolution of the brain lies at the core of vertebrate history.'
But paleontologists recently discovered the oldest known example nestled within a 300-million-year-old fish fossil from Kansas.
Boy, are some intelligently designed people going to be pissed off at this fish.
Not only is it 300 million years old, but it is also not very intelligently designed with that "can't see up or down"-vision.
And all that right under their noses without them even noticing it.
One would think that the 300 million years old fishy smell would be a giveaway.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It seems to me that the act of labeling this fish bizarre is itself bizarre. Just because proportions are not what we are used to seeing does not make them necessarily weird. Organisms are designed for the environment they live in and their physical characteristics reflect that. Perhaps interesting or unusual would be better adjectives ;-).
Unexpected is a more apt description. I haven't read TFA yet, cause I like to read the funny on /. first, but it isn't unusual for modern scientists to describe some phenomena as bizarre because the universe did not yield the results they expected. What is interesting is the increase in bizarre phenomena which doesn't fit the current dogma.
A true scientist will admit that they don't have all of the answers. A great scientist will realize that they aren't even asking the right question.
It's all there in your HHGttG, or Kindle.