Dinosaur Feathers Found In Amber

An anonymous reader writes "A stunning array of prehistoric feathers, including dinosaur protofeathers, has been discovered in Late Cretaceous amber from Canada. 'Protofeathers aren't known from any modern, existing groups of birds and therefore the most obvious interpretation is that they belong to dinosaurs,' said University of Alberta professor, Alexander P. Wolfe. The 78 to 79-million-year-old amber preserved the feathers in vivid detail, including some of their diverse colors."

Comments

Yes!

[xstonedogx]

Can't wait for Jurassic Farms. *licks chops*

Re:Yes!

[RobbieThe1st]

Ooh, I second that!

Re:Yes!

[riverat1]

Won't it just taste like chicken?

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, chickens the size of small cars.

Re:Yes!

[macraig]

More like emu.

Re:Yes!

[macraig]

They're called emu. Smack into one o' those with your expensive car and the damage will look like another car caused it.

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Isaac Asimov wrote a story, the name of which I cannot recall (although I believe that it was part of the Buy Jupiter compilation, if my memory deceives me not), about farming dinosaurs for food. I believe the comparison between dinosaur meat and chicken was akin to "the way Jupiter resembles an asteroid".

Re:Yes!

[HornWumpus]

Sorry, I've actually eaten emu. It tastes like ass.

Very red meat for bird, also very gamey.

Re:Yes!

[DamienNightbane]

Why do you know what ass tastes like?

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't it just taste like chicken?

Technically chicken tastes like dinosaur.

Re:Yes!

[riverat1]

:) Yeah, maybe I got it backwards.

Re:Yes!

[confused one]

Big scary chickens. I feel there should be an obligatory XKCD raptor reference here; but, I can't decide which one to post.

Re:Yes!

[Barsteward]

" It tastes like ass." - it tastes like a donkey??

Re:Yes!

[queBurro]

I remember this all being predicted in 2000ad back in the 70's, there must have been some slippage on the delivery dates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesh_(comics)

Re:Yes!

[tehcyder]

Why do you know what ass tastes like?

You know your mom? Well...

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he has a kinky girlfriend.

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dinosaur feather in Amber?
What was Amber doing with this Dinosaur feather?
  cant she find better toys with which to play ?

Re:Yes!

[DamienNightbane]

Maybe he has a kinky girlfriend.

This is Slashdot. Don't be ridiculous.

Re:Yes!

[stillnotelf]

Your second link lost its number and goes to the main page. I couldn't figure out what today's comic about stud finders had to do with raptors...

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

You got it right. We tasted chickens first.

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the most appropriate one.>

EDIT: captcha = paddock

The slashdottiraptors are loose!

Non-Avian

[Anthony]

That would be non-avian dinosaur feathers.

Re:Non-Avian

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought birds are reptiles? SO these are reptile feathers?

Re:Non-Avian

[MozeeToby]

Current thinking has birds more closely related to dinosaurs than reptiles. Some go so far as to say birds would be a subclass of dinosaurs if what we think of as dinosaurs were still around to compare them against.

Re:Non-Avian

[serviscope_minor]

Current thinking has birds more closely related to dinosaurs than reptiles.

Dinosaurs are/were reptiles. Which means that so are birds (biologically, though not of course in common parlance). The term "reptile" is polypyhletic (or paraphyletic), meaning that it encompasses something other than a complete evoloutionary sub-tree.

Re:Non-Avian

[Anonymous Coward]

To preempt the endless discussions we had a few weeks ago: dinosaurs are classified as reptiles, not lizards.

ps: the term reptile is only paraphyletic if you exclude birds from the reptile tree, as in the classical Linnean classification system. The phylogenic definition of reptilia is synonymous with sauropsida, which does include birds.

Re:TFA is ad ridden blog

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome. I appreciate it.

Ah ha!

[hawkingradiation]

They have finally found the relics of our dinosaur government. Well, at least they mean something to paleantologists.

So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[ideonexus]

What's really neat is that there are now so many dinosaur/bird hybrid fossils that we don't know which one is the direct ancestor of modern birds. There are just too many candidates for the missing link.

The really funny is that the Creationists are spinning the overwhelming abundance of missing links to mean that none of them are missing the link.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[ideonexus]

That should read "none of them are the missing link". (Hangs head in shame for watching TV while commenting)

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Anonymous Coward]

None of them *is* the missing link.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Dog-Cow]

But which one is the weakest link?

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even more hilarious if you look at what was known, say, 20 years ago, before the recent discoveries and compare it to what has been found to date. Sure, since the late 1800s we had Archaeopteryx from the Late Jurassic with its odd combination of dinosaur-like features (teeth, claws, long bony tail) and flight feathers. Ignore the feathers and it looked an awful lot like a small Velociraptor-like dinosaur. Anti-evolutionary creationists mostly said it was a bird, although they weren't entirely consistent and sometimes called it a reptile. You could try to say that birds and dinosaurs were still different creatures, if you danced around some of the peculiar features of Archaeopteryx (any way you slice it, it was either a VERY weird bird or a VERY weird dinosaur). They also tried and failed to scientifically show that the feathers preserved on it weren't real.

Then in the 1990s dinosaurs with feather-like hairy structures turned up ( Sinosauropteryx ), then long-legged and obviously not flying dinosaurs with pretty clear flightless-bird-style feathers (e.g., Caudipteryx ), then Microraptor with asymmetric *flight* feathers on its arms AND legs (the "four-winged dinosaur") and which experiments have shown could probably glide. It still had teeth, Velociraptor-like claws and a long, dinosaur-like tail. Then the complaint was "but these are all younger than Archaeopteryx" (Early Cretaceous), which is true, but given the rarity of these sorts of fossils it's statistically unlikely that you will find them at the very first point they ever existed. Then Anchiornis turned up in the Late Jurassic anyway, close in age to Archaeopteryx. And that's not even all of them. Inevitably there are gaps, because there always will be gaps even if you find millions of fossils (very tiny gaps), but it's fair to say that the distinction between birds and certain dinosaurs has progressively become so blurry and arbitrary that it's hard to reliably draw the line between them. Wishbones? We used to think they were unique to birds. No. Even T. rex has a wishbone. And the list goes on and on of features we thought were unique to birds but turn out not to be. People are even questioning whether the conventional view that Archaeopteryx is a bird is correct, rather than a side-branch close to the divergence between birds and dinosaurs, which if accepted would mean you could have a flying dinosaur that isn't technically regarded as a "bird". That would be weird.

Even after all those discoveries of the last 20 years or so, anti-evolutionary creationists still assure us that there are immutable boundaries between categories of life. Scientists still do argue about the exact relationships between these various group, but it is always going to be hard to resolve close to the branch points. I think any reasonable person looking at the history of discoveries would say that we aren't seeing ever-clearer indications that birds and dinosaurs are completely distinct, but that over time they blur together more and more. This is not unique to birds either. The same sort of thing is seen if you compare, say, what was known about the transition between fish and land vertebrates in the 1800s versus the fossils that are known now. Nobody expects a perfect record of life on Earth, but the pattern with increased sampling of it is pretty obvious. To me it is no more of a jump than when you draw a regression line through an ever-increasing number of sample points along a clear trend. Meanwhile the anti-evolutionary creationists will forever emphasize that there are spaces between the data points.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to read it five times after reading your second post to figure out what you actually said.

For the other dyslexics that couldn't see the problem "the missing link" != "missing the link".

You should have just stayed quite. This has been quite the ordeal for all of us.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[m.ducharme]

The Creationist, of course. Goodbye.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Black Parrot]

ll those discoveries of the last 20 years or so, anti-evolutionary creationists still assure us that there are immutable boundaries between categories of life.

Newsflash: Creationism isn't an Evidence-Based Discipline.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash : Genesis is not to be interpreted literally.
(actually this is old news, 1st century Jewish scholar Philo of Alexandria, wrote that it would be a mistake to think that creation happened in six days or in any determinate amount of time) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of_Genesis

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr Alan Feduccia, a world authority on birds at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an evolutionist himself (seeFeduccia v Creationists), says: “Paleontologists have tried to turnArchaeopteryxinto an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that.” - Feduccia, A.; cited in: V. Morell,Archaeopteryx:Early Bird Catches a Can of Worms,Science259(5096):764–65, 5 February 1993

Not to mention that intact, full-evolved bird fossils are found at the same level and LOWER, indicating that they are contemporary with Archaeopteryx and, in some cases, actually predate these fossils, meaning that dinosaurs evolved from birds! Strangely enough, even those these are well-documented examples, the non-scientists leap onto the bandwagon without processing all of the information. Evolution is an interesting philosophy as indicated by those who put their faith into it without investigating the facts that it purports to have in its favor.

Personally, I object to blind faith in anything.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Anonymous Coward]

"none of them are the missing link" ...only because they're not missing anymore. Can't be a missing link if it's not missing, right. (Don't blame me, it's not my logic)

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[thunderclap]

And Evolution is still a theory because fossil can only prove a species existed not that it turned into another. That can't be proven empirically.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Black Parrot]

And Evolution is still a theory because fossil can only prove a species existed not that it turned into another. That can't be proven empirically.

Uh... *nothing* can be proven empirically. Proofs use axioms and rules of logical inference. Theories use a more generic sort of inference from evidence.

And evolution is "still a theory" because theories are as good as it gets in the empirical sciences, and no evidence has come along to shoot that theory down.

Evolution, general relativity, and the atomic theory are "still theories"; phlogiston and the steady-state universe are not. "Theory" is the corner where we park the winners, not the losers.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[RPI Geek]

>> And Evolution is still a theory because fossil can only prove a species existed not that it turned into another. That can't be proven empirically.

Gravity is still a theory, too.

Speciation has been observed, but I'll concede the point that it hasn't been observed in dinosaurs.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Barsteward]

yawn.. are you a creationist scientist who believes humans and dinosaurs lived side by side?

" that monkey 50 million years ago is a human today." comment marks you are a creationist or someone who doesn't understand evolution.

then again you could just be a troll

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Nrrqshrr]

Yet another quality cup of coffee snorted thanks to witty /. comments. Thank you.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[epine]

Very nice post from the primordial mists of the AC. As the data points accumulate, it's becoming more evident that the AC did not branch from the human race as long ago as it often seems, but still walk among us, capable of intelligent digital locomotion, possessing the full modern complement of shift keys and angle brackets.

I've said it before: Tyrrell rocks. I grew up in the area, but only visited later in life as a tourist. When I trim my chin feathers and expose my Grenadier Guard chin wattle, I can do a bang-on impression of an Albertosaurus, or so I'm told. Like New Orleans jazz, it's bred in the bone. Either you have it, or you don't.

The thing that burns my biscuits about these press reports is failing to mental that Alberta had an equatorial climate in the era concerned. Along with fixation on the gaps (ever smaller and smaller), a certain sect would probably argue that equatorial drift does not require hundreds of millions of years.

If god grabbed the planet by the axle threads, how long would it take to shift the equator circa 50 degrees, and would we all feel green for decades or centuries?

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[gtall]

Group theory, set theory, type theory, category theory....all mathematical theories. Your distinction between axiomatic theories and natural theories correct, but axiomatic theories are just that, theories.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[mean pun]

No. fact is where we park winner. You drop something from a 110 story building, it falls at the same rate either feather or brick. that's gravity. Gravity is fact.

Why are you so sure that that will be the observed behavior? Gravity is just a theory. Granted, there are a lot of observations that fit the theory, but how can you be absolutely sure that this theory applies at every place and moment? You are basing yourself on a finite number of observations, and the vast majority of these observations are so casual that they wouldn't spot subtle deviations.

Actually, I am sure that if you drop a feather and a brick and a feather from a 110 story building they will not fall at the same rate, and neither of them will fall at a rate or trajectory predicted by gravity.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Kirijini]

Are you really going to appeal to authority *and* object to blind faith in the same post?

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[crimperman]

Are you sure it shouldn't be "none of them is the missing link"? ;)

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Anonymous Coward]

And for the record, adaptation to environment isn't evolution to me. Having species just mutate from one type to another is. You want to say that dinosaurs were big ass chickens. Fine but dont tell me that t rex and a current chicken are the same or that that monkey 50 million years ago is a human today. That isn't adaptation.

First you change the definitions. Then you ignore your own definitions. Bravo, you're a moron.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[tehcyder]

I think any reasonable person looking at the history of discoveries would say that we aren't seeing ever-clearer indications that birds and dinosaurs are completely distinct, but that over time they blur together more and more.

Creationists aren't reasonable people:. their world view is based on faith, not reason, but they try to disguise this simple fact by arguing about scientific facts as thouh it made any diference to them.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[tehcyder]

And Evolution is still a theory because fossil can only prove a species existed not that it turned into another. That can't be proven empirically.

Every description of the real world is "just" a theory unless you believe somehing like the Bile sets down immutable truths.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Anonymous Coward]

People are even questioning whether the conventional view that Archaeopteryx is a bird is correct, rather than a side-branch close to the divergence between birds and dinosaurs, which if accepted would mean you could have a flying dinosaur that isn't technically regarded as a "bird". That would be weird.

You mean like the pteradoctyl?

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Empiric]

Meanwhile the anti-evolutionary creationists will forever emphasize that there are spaces between the data points.

Similarly, whenever my boss complains my code doesn't compile, I simply explain to him that it's just that there are "spaces between the object dependencies".

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[tehcyder]

And for the record, adaptation to environment isn't evolution to me. Having species just mutate from one type to another is.

It might be an idea to read at least one book that explains what the (neo-) Darwinian theory of Evolution actually is. I'd recommend one of Richard Dawkins' books like The Blind Watchmaker or The Selfish Gene, as he is a very clear writer.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[microTodd]

Granted,my 5th-grade science is a little rusty, but I though gravity was a Law? As in, if a theory has enough corroborating evidence the scientific community agrees that it deserves to be promoted to a Law.

Also, can't gravity be rigorously proven from first concepts using basic forces, etc? Isn't that how the Law of Universal Gravitation and the Gravitational Constant are calculated?

I'm not a physicist...hopefully one can chime in, I'm honestly curious.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Coren22]

Them is some good potatoes.

Now, please return to English class.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Coren22]

then Microraptor [wikipedia.org] with asymmetric *flight* feathers on its arms AND legs (the "four-winged dinosaur") and which experiments have shown could probably glide. It still had teeth, Velociraptor-like claws and a long, dinosaur-like tail.

Oh god, don't tell that to Monroe, imagine his reaction if he knew there were flying raptors too!

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[tompaulco]

Meanwhile the anti-evolutionary creationists will forever emphasize that there are spaces between the data points.
Well, who can blame them? You're correct that we can't expect a perfectly smooth fossil record, but when there is such a large sampling surrounding the data points, with nothing in between, it would be kind of suspect to a mathematician. I mean, for example, we have found 30 T Rex. We have found 11 Archaeopteryx. And it is not like all of these were found in the same location trapped in a mudbank or something. When you have clusters like this and nothing in between, it starts raising questions. I mean two or three is chance, but 11? 30?
We are left to have to consider other options, such as evolution being fairly static for a while and then moving with very rapid speed (perhaps due to an environmental change), such that the "in between" population was an order of magnitude less than the "stable" species.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[cellocgw]

FWIW, the subject of the GP's sentence is "none," not "them." You fail English.
And while I'm on the subject, your English teacher *flunks* you, not *fails* you.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[stillnotelf]

Gravity is a "law" because it is much older than the current nomenclature standards, and was already called a law when science settled on theory/theorem. If it had been formalized in the late 1800s instead of 200 years earlier, it would be called the Theory of Gravity or Gravitational Theorem instead. It's just a language thing; it doesn't reflect anything about the science.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Man Eating Duck]

Speciation has been observed, but I'll concede the point that it hasn't been observed in dinosaurs .

No modpoints left, so I just wanted to thank you for this one. It's pure gold :)

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[NiteShaed]

Granted,my 5th-grade science is a little rusty, but I though gravity was a Law? As in, if a theory has enough corroborating evidence the scientific community agrees that it deserves to be promoted to a Law.

Theories do not get "promoted" to become laws. "Law" is an outdated term and is no longer used because it implies something immutable or final. "The Laws of Physics don't allow for that!". Science is always open to being challenged and rethought, so therefore "theory" is now as good as it gets. I believe your understanding of "Theory -> Law" is actually better described by "Hypothesis -> Theory".

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[black soap]

This is more like "we don't have the source code for the versions of the software prior to 1990, so obviously we can't know what programs back then actually looked like."

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Botia]

Are you kidding me? We have classified approximately 700 species of dinosaurs. Of those, about half are believed to be duplicates as most of the fossils are largely incomplete. That leaves us with about 350 species. We believe we have discovered about 25% of the dinosaurs. Assuming this is true, that brings the number of dinosaur species up to about 1400. These 1400 dinosaurs existed over 183 million years or so (248 million years ago to 65 million years ago).

Now lets look at the current extinction rate. Each year more than 27,000 species go extinct. Yes, you read that right. Let us look at mammals as they are typically considered the most evolved. In the past 400 years, 89 species have gone extinct and 169 species are critically endangered. Using simple extrapolation based on the 89 species, we would expect to see approximately 40 million species of dinosaurs over the 183 million years when they existed if evolution were true. If you include the critically endangered species, that would bring the total to 120 million species of dinosaurs. (Math: 89/400=0.2225 species per year. 0.225*183,000,000 = ~40,000,000).

When creationists speak of missing links, they are no looking for a single missing link. They are looking for the variation of species that evolution dictates, approximately 40 million species of dinosaurs, not 1400.

And just to set the record straight, I am very excited about this find and the exponential growth of knowledge we have of the earth's past. As we continue to find more fossils and other preserved remains and discover the remaining 1000 species, please quit calling each of them the missing link. It does not solve the fundamental problem of the fossil record.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[crunchygranola]

People are even questioning whether the conventional view that Archaeopteryx is a bird is correct, rather than a side-branch close to the divergence between birds and dinosaurs, which if accepted would mean you could have a flying dinosaur that isn't technically regarded as a "bird". That would be weird.

You mean like the pteradoctyl?

Actually, surprisingly enough, no. Not like a pteradactyl. Modern cladistics completely exclude the pterosaurs from any part of the sub-tree (Dinosauromorpha) that can be called "dinosaurs" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archosauria). They split off from dinosaurs in the clade Avemetatarsalia at about the same level as birds do.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[crunchygranola]

Meanwhile the anti-evolutionary creationists will forever emphasize that there are spaces between the data points. Well, who can blame them? You're correct that we can't expect a perfectly smooth fossil record, but when there is such a large sampling surrounding the data points, with nothing in between, it would be kind of suspect to a mathematician.

Not to a real mathematician, who understands statistical inference, no.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[metallurge]

Quite.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[smelch]

I'm sure. You wouldn't say "some of them is", but you would say "some of it is". Why would none be different? It isn't singular all the time. None can mean not one ("none has eaten a rabbit of such vast size") or not any ("none of them have eaten a rabbit of such vast size"). In the sentence he is saying not any.

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[Anonymous Coward]

Hang even lower: "none of them is the missing link"!

Re:So Many Missing Links to Choose From

[MrKaos]

That should read "none of them are the missing link". (Hangs head in shame for watching TV while commenting)

But of them, are the link missing none? This dinosaur stuff is really confusing sometimes.

Of course they're dino-feathers!

[Anonymous Coward]

2007 Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5845/1721.full

I know this is /. but RTFA, the pictures are amazing!

Re:TFA is ad-ridden blog

[UnresolvedExternal]

*sigh* I must be getting as old as that joke...

Mod this Goatse down please cos I aint wasting mine....

And yes sir, I did look at the bottom and it wasn't very nice - get laid much?

Birds are dinosaurs

[bigsexyjoe]

Cool discovery. We now know that dinosaurs where pretty bird-like. For example, the velociraptors from the end of Jurassic Park where actually covered with feathers. Birds descend from dinosaurs and in fact, it might be more accurate to say birds ARE dinosaurs.

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[UnresolvedExternal]

Dear god, please don't quote Jurassic Park as a reference.....

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[bigsexyjoe]

I actually pointed out a flaw in Jurassic Park. I think it was made before it was realized that dinosaurs had feathers.

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[UnresolvedExternal]

I bow to your superior knowledge

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[airfoobar]

Good thing for ILM too, because in 1992 rendering feathered dinosaurs would have taken ages! ;)

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[Anonymous Coward]

To their credit, I think they shoe-horned in a few mentions of the bird-dino link in the movie. And while archaeopteryx fossils had been found long before (1860's, yeah?), I don't think we were quite there yet with the whole, dinosaurs-with-feathers bit.

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[ldobehardcore]

Also real velociraptors would only be about nipple high on most people. Not the size of a thorogh bred race horse as depicted in the movies

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[Monkey-Man2000]

You are incorrect. Jurassic Park is what popularized to the public the idea that birds descended from dinosaurs for the regular person. I remember this distinctly in the documentaries about making the movie. This was an explicit intention of Spielberg. The book may not reflect this explicitly, but the movie and CG certainly did. Spielberg's dinosaur scientific consultant's were some of the principal proponents of the 'birds descended from dinosaurs'-theory and they've gone on to be vindicated as well as he has since the movie and book came out. I don't have the references off-hand, but it's certainly true. If you're just hung-up about the feathers part, you may be correct about that part at the time because feathers are so hard to preserve for obvious reasons... But frankly, who the fuck cares about feathers on dinosaurs? Now, whenever I walk into a park I'm concerned these vicious pigeons could attack me like a velociraptor (it's in their blood)!!!

DAMN YOU SPIELBERG!!!

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they were lower than that (more like knee-high). Deinonychus was bigger, but still only hip-high, although I suppose both of them could jump.

But say hello to my little friend Utahraptor .

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[Anonymous Coward]

Pigeons? Meh. Not scary. Flight has made them light and wimpy.

Emus, ostriches, rheas and cassowarys? THOSE are scary. Heck, ostriches even have claws on their wings.

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[quenda]

I actually pointed out a flaw in Jurassic Park.

Oh no! Next thing you'll be telling me that velociraptors were not even Jurassic.

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[tunapez]

Raptors(falcons, hawks, eagles) are killing machines. If they were any bigger I don't doubt we'd make for a nice quarry. When I read JP I remember more being made out of the feather theory, I remember because it reminded me of the evil rooster that tormented me when I was 3yo.
 
BTW, I've been privileged to have a family of Harris' Hawks nesting outside my bedroom window for the last 10 months. No shitting, I went to the aid of a peacock a few hours ago after they cornered him on the neighbor's porch. The big mutha hawk perched on the gable end 15' over my head and stared at me, unafraid, as I herded her lunch into the safety of his coop. I don't know if they could have taken him, he's triple the size and I don't know how aggressive peacocks are, actually. His talons are impressive.

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[Anonymous Coward]

so it's really dinosaur porn, with all those naked beasts running around.

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[RivenAleem]

Velociraptors were bad enough to begin with, but now you're saying they can fly? Now we're fucked.

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[tehcyder]

Dear god, please don't quote Jurassic Park as a reference.....

To be fair, it was that film that sparked the revival of interest in cool UNIX-based 3D graphical operating systems amongst the general population, wihout which we wouldn't have Compiz today.

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[tehcyder]

Now, whenever I walk into a park I'm concerned these vicious pigeons could attack me like a velociraptor

Cue Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park"...

When they see me coming, the birdies all try and hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated in cyaniade...

Re:Birds are dinosaurs

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

As I recall the "velociraptor" was made up. Ithink some form of raptor type dinosaur was later named "velociraptor" in honour of the movie.
I could be wrong, but that is how I remember it.

Dinosaur Feathers Found In Amber?

[Obfuscant]

I assume Amber was refusing to walk through the TSA body-scanner and had thus been subjected to the full-body search? And people say there is no value to such searches. Look at the advances in science we are getting. Thanks, TSA!

Re:Dinosaur Feathers Found In Amber?

[Anonymous Coward]

But how did it get there? I think something went wrong the night before. (NSFW link)

Jacob Roberson

You know what would be cool?

[bigsexyjoe]

If the dinosaurs also talked like some birds. And when they where about to eat you they menaced you by repeating the words of the last person they ate. So they'd corner you and yell, "Please don't eat me! Please don't eat me! Oh God! Nooo!"
Kind of an out there thought but I had to share. I thought it was cool.

Re:You know what would be cool?

[swanzilla]

This is a unix system, I know this! This is a unix system, I know this! Oh god! Nooo!

Re:You know what would be cool?

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like a monster that would show up on Doctor Who...

Re:You know what would be cool?

[airfoobar]

Clever girl...

Re:You know what would be cool?

[Shadow99_1]

Except in the book it was the little boy...

Re:You know what would be cool?

[Intropy]

fsn was made for IRIX systems so I guess it's not too terribly surprising that's what a bunch of CGI guys would pick when told to "Show something computery... and make it look good."

Re:You know what would be cool?

[bar-agent]

And when they where about to eat you they menaced you by repeating the words of the last person they ate. So they'd corner you and yell, "Please don't eat me! Please don't eat me! Oh God! Nooo!"

It's the drugs. It's the drugs, isn't it?

Re:You know what would be cool?

[bigsexyjoe]

I've actually been watching a lot of Doctor Who. That might be why I'm thinking that way. Also I saw the parrot video from an earlier article today, and I realized that it saying "What are doing! What are you doing!" sounded pretty menacing.

Re:You know what would be cool?

[Anonymous Coward]

That line was just shameless pitching to nerds in the audience.

Besides, what could a schoolgirl (or boy) know about unix. "can you get facebook on it" LOL

Re:You know what would be cool?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am silently laughing. Yet I am farting out loud. WTF@!

Re:You know what would be cool?

[Anonymous Coward]

*whoosh*
 
That's the sound of the movie reference going over your head.

Re:You know what would be cool?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh frack...oh frack...Oh frack.... Ahhhhh

Re:You know what would be cool?

[crimperman]

yes it was (although he wasn't so little in the book) but the GP was referring to the line made by the gamewarden when he is tricked by the Velociraptors while hunting them.

Re:You know what would be cool?

[tehcyder]

Awesome, it's similar to Predator when the alien copies bits he hears people saying and repeats them back.

"Any time..."

but but but but

[MickyTheIdiot]

The Creation museum says that birds aren't related to dinosaurs.

Six thousand years ago Washington was riding a dinosaur, so this makes no sense.

my favorite museum item

[Kvasio]

amber with mummified spider's lung

Let me be the first to say..

[Pottsynz]

that life, uh... finds a way.

Re:Let me be the first to say..

[Intropy]

And he never bothered to play another character for the rest of his days...

Spielberg does a Lucas

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

Now the Raptors look like chickens.

Dr Alan Grant: "NOOOOooooooooooo!"

Science ruins Michael Crichton again!

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[SETIGuy]

Science and Michael Crichton always had a hate-hate relationship.

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[izomiac]

Timeline:

• 1990 - Jurassic Park book released
• 1993 - Jurassic Park movie released
• 1998 - Feathers discovered on a velociraptor

Now, although I enjoy Crichton's works, most are soft science fiction (harder than most though). The velociraptors were far more like Deinonychus antirrhopus (considered a species of Velociraptor by Crichton's primary source, though the dispute is even acknowledged by Alan Grant, oh, and no feathers have been found on this species), and a lot of cinematic liberty was taken in the movie and book. Most of it's not terribly important to the central theme, which is fairly common for his works. It's also rather common for people to not realize there is a theme to his books.

BTW, have some basic respect for the dead, even if you disagree with him or don't care for his works. Save your jokes for people who are alive or committed serious crimes in life.

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[dbIII]

Even going back to the "doctors with nukes" thriller of Andromeda Strain the science, technology and engineering has been a very twistable plot device. Even today we don't really have the gear that was supposed to be available in the present of "Congo" (1980) because satellite communications gear still takes time to set up for more than a tiny bandwidth, let alone under a thick dripping wet multi-layered tree canopy. In his later works he even used his influence in an attempt to discredit established science. A lot of the stories are fun (homicidal albino gorillas with stone ping pong bats?) but remember that he also did a lot of poking fun at science from what he saw as his superior position as a medical doctor. To me those smug blatant attacks made his later books unreadable and I doubt they would have been published in that form if he didn't already have a reputation. He needed an editor to get him away from the tirade and into the action.
Jurassic Park had a lot of admitted dumbing down and bait and switch to get the story moving and the movie to fit, which is fair enough because nobody pretended otherwise, but it's where Crichton used his influence to deliberately sell misinformation as information that annoyed me when he was alive. Just accept him as a fiction writer that made some things in science popular. He brought comments like the above "hate-hate" relationship on himself when he was alive and they are not going to go away for a while, it's got nothing to do with "respect for the dead".

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

My basic respect extends as far as I think he deserves.

When I write a misleading author's note about global warming on my next book, I'll expect no less.

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, have some basic respect for the dead, even if you disagree with him or don't care for his works. Save your jokes for people who are alive or committed serious crimes in life.

Dead people are harmed far less from bad jokes than living people. Please have some basic respect for the living. Save your jokes for the dead, they won't mind.

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[RivenAleem]

I suspect that a number of scientists secretly love him for making their line of work popular and thus getting them significant amounts of funding.

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[dunezone]

A science fiction book contains information that might be wrong. Go figure.

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[HBI]

Let's assume that he did mislead people. He did no less than the AGW fanatics have done...try to stampede the stupid masses into believing there was (Gore, IPCC, AGW fanatics) or was not (Crichton, Rutan, etc) an emergency that needed a response. The "best" part is that, regardless of what you might think, your side has admitted repeatedly - even Al Gore did so - that they have been exaggerating the truth and have inadequate evidence of their conclusions. The objective is to get something political done. Truth is optional.

Essentially, your disdain for him amounts to a political argument with the guy. Even I don't waste time ripping on the swimmer (Ted Kennedy) anymore. Woops.

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[Anonymous Coward]

Crichton is easily in the top ten best science fiction writers, your misinformation about his "misinformation" is swaying no intellectually-capable audience.

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[black soap]

He didn't say just how much frog DNA they had to use to fill in the gaps....

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[dbIII]

To show how silly that is look at the top ten fiction writers and pretend that their stuff is all true as well.
I think you don't understand what the discussion is about because it all happened a few years ago. Crichton attracted a lot of criticism for pushing his own little anti-environmentalism agenda which had no basis in reality but he pretended it did. He treated science like magic in a few of his books, fair enough, a lot of SF writers do that, but they don't then try to pretend that the magic is real and that they know more than scientists in the field they are writing fiction about.

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

I'll happily mock anyone who is purposefully misleading.

I also wasn't aware that choosing a 'side' meant endorsing every opinion within it.

Luckily 'my side' includes almost every reputable scientific body in the world, which makes me feel slightly more comfortable.

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[dbIII]

The issue was he pretended some of his fiction was real and used his reputation to harrass some real scientists, as I tried to write in the first paragraph above.
At the end of his life he wrote a string of disaster novels where science was the cause and the moral was the luddite "if only we had left it alone". Those sort of books most likely inspired the "hate-hate relationship" comment from the poster above.
The biggest clanger ultimately pushing an anti-science agenda was of course "State of Confusion" as discussed here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-crichtons-state-of-confusion/
He actually does a Godwin and compares all of climate science to eugenics. That's a pretty big insult to people in your town that do nothing but innocently collect weather data. If you knew them instead of them being a formless "other" to be attacked would you really put up with such bullshit?

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[c6gunner]

BTW, have some basic respect for the dead, even if you disagree with him or don't care for his works. Save your jokes for people who are alive or committed serious crimes in life.

What the ... he's dead??

Just checked wikipedia and it says he died in 2008. I had no idea. Dammit. I thought his newest book was taking a while ...

Re:Spielberg does a Lucas

[SETIGuy]

Yeah, ask a palaeontologist how the grants got bigger after Jurassic Park. Oh what, they didn't?

"Dinosaur Feathers Found In Amber"

[DJCouchyCouch]

Amber was quite surprised at the finding.

Re:"Dinosaur Feathers Found In Amber"

[drnb]

Amber was quite surprised at the finding.

I'd wager Amber stopped being surprised a long time ago.

Re:"Dinosaur Feathers Found In Amber"

[IHateEverybody]

But once she decided to incorporate the feathers into her act, Amber's clientele doubled.

Jurassic Park reboot next...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait till they reboot/remaster the movie for "better accuracy"

Spielberg: "Alright everyone make sure all the dinosaurs look feathery, crank up those CG effect boxes!"

Re:Jurassic Park reboot next...

[airfoobar]

They should hand it to George Lucas.

Re:Jurassic Park reboot next...

[Anonymous Coward]

The lawyer shot first.

Re:Jurassic Park reboot next...

[stillnotelf]

The lawyer shot first.

Not to be crude, but the lawyer _shat_ first, if I remember the scene correctly...

Luke, here is your feather

[tepples]

Feathered dinosaurs in a Jurassic Park reboot could still be made scary. Look at this raptor, for example.

Re:Luke, here is your feather

[Psion]

Looks like a mummer.

Re:Luke, here is your feather

[Anonymous Coward]

Feathered dinosaurs in a Jurassic Park reboot could still be made scary. Look at this raptor, for example.

Looks like she's ready for the spring cotillion...

Re:Luke, here is your feather

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if Lucas had directed it, the Blu-ray edition would soon have feathered dinosaurs, and Jeff Goldblum would also yell out "You're plucked".

Re:Luke, here is your feather

[c6gunner]

Feathered dinosaurs in a Jurassic Park reboot could still be made scary. Look at this raptor, for example.

Ah, yes. It has the fearsome power of making it's prey die from laughter.

Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all fake. Everyone knows that the earth didn't exist 79 million years ago. At best, 7 thousand years ago and man and dinosaur coexisted. Those feathers were obviously from the dinosaur being hunted for food. This is all a lie perpetuated by satan.

Done laughing yet?

Tweet Tweet

[TakeABow]

So Dinosaurs had feathers. Now I can't help but imagine a velociraptor with yellow baby chick down feathers.

Re:Tweet Tweet

[madhi19]

Think about a giant Ostrich. That pretty much how they must have looked. And modern Ostrich are mean SOB in a good day.

Re:Tweet Tweet

[ledow]

"Think about a giant Ostrich" - one that's about the size of a chicken.

To follow my rules for keeping pets - I'd be quite happy to have it because I *COULD* drop-kick it over the wall if it were to turn against me. (And hence, I don't keep Great Danes or any of a range of other breeds of dog as pets).

Age old question finally answered!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dinosaurs did taste like chicken.

That Dang Amber- I keep telling her

[gearloos]

That Dang Amber- I keep telling her I'm gonna break up with her if she doesn't stop that kinky stuff!

Corwin was no doubt quite upset by all the mess...

[VoxBoston]

/reporting from shadow-Earth.

Obligatory Lost World ref

[wesleyjconnor]

Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming.

Circular logic

[sonamchauhan]

I think the comment from the story is telling:

"'Protofeathers aren't known from any modern, existing groups of birds and therefore the most obvious interpretation is that they belong to dinosaurs,' said University of Alberta professor, Alexander P. Wolfe."

Re:Circular logic

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be missing the detail that filamentous, "protofeather" structures are already known from certain dinosaurs (e.g., Sinosauropteryx). He's not saying that is the only possible interpretation, only that it is the most reasonable/obvious because structures like these are already known from dinosaurs, but not birds (modern or fossil).

Re:Circular logic

[gewalker]

Dino-feathers in amber is a pretty interesting find, although that idea that these are dino-feathers is apparently an assumption in not having found similar feather structure in modern birds. Not being a biologist, must less a archaeo-ornithologist, I ask what is the difference between these protofeathers and downy feathers? I read what I could find easily on-line and it appears that some scientists don't believe in protofeathers at all, they think it is just decayed collagen. Nothing I found really spelled out the difference between modern feathers and protofeather other than the "proto versions" must of course been first -- at least not in a way I could understand simply.

Any real expertise or a link to a good description would be appreciated.

As a side note, the protofeathers in the find are dated at 80 MY ago, and archaeopteryx at 150 MY ago (with have generally advanced feathers, perhaps flight capable). It seems like proto does not mean what it should in this case. Personally, I start with the prototype. (I just find humor in language at time)

Re:Circular logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Circular? What do you mean?
1. There is no evidence of modern birds in the fossil record of that period. There is evidence to support this, ie a chain of fossils leading up to modern birds.
2. dinosaur fossils have already been found, with fossilized feathers attached. These are most likely just more instances of the same, but not fossilized this time, rather actually preserved in amber.

And finally, he only said "..the most obvious interpretation ..."
Which is perfectly true.
No circular reference here. The fallacy is yours.

Re:Circular logic

[pokerdad]

I think the comment from the story is telling: "'Protofeathers aren't known from any modern, existing groups of birds and therefore the most obvious interpretation is that they belong to dinosaurs,' said University of Alberta professor, Alexander P. Wolfe."

Considering the age of most fossil finds in Alberta, that isn't as crazy as you think.

Re:Circular logic

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the article you'd know both that that quote is out of context and why it wasn't circular logic.

Re:Circular logic

[sonamchauhan]

I did.

If you read my reply above, and the links referenced, you'll know why it is

Re:Circular logic

[sonamchauhan]

Hi... Gladly.

Please see my post above. Heres' the link to the paper quoted there.
http://biology.kenyon.edu/courses/biol241/bird%20flight%202005%20Feduccia_Alan.pdf

[From the main paper]
We examine the alleged support from the fossils Sinosauropteryx (Currie and Chen, 2001), Sinorni- thosaurus, an indeterminate theropod (Ji et al., 2001), and Caudipteryx (Qiang et al., 1998) with respect to the key features in stages 1–4 of Prum and Brush’s (2002) developmental theory on feather morphogenesis. ...

[From the Abstract]
Our findings show no evidence for the existence of protofeathers and consequently no evidence in support of the follicular theory of the morpho- genesis of the feather. Rather, based on histological studies of the integument of modern reptiles, which show complex patterns of the collagen fibers of the dermis, we conclude that “protofeathers” are probably the remains of collagenous fiber “meshworks” that reinforced the dinosaur integument.

I do believe what's written here:
http://www.icr.org/article/6398/

Re:Circular logic

[sonamchauhan]

1. No evidence of birds?

http://www.icr.org/article/6398/
If dinosaurs evolved into birds, then protofeathers should be found on dinosaur fossils located below (and therefore dated before) fossils of birds, not above and after them. McKellar's fibers came from Cretaceous deposits, but true bird feathers have been found in fossil layers far below the Cretaceous. Why would feathers still be evolving long after they supposedly already existed?

2. Dino Feathers?

http://biology.kenyon.edu/courses/biol241/bird%20flight%202005%20Feduccia_Alan.pdf

[From the Abstract]
Our findings show no evidence for the existence of protofeathers and consequently no evidence in support of the follicular theory of the morpho- genesis of the feather. Rather, based on histological studies of the integument of modern reptiles, which show complex patterns of the collagen fibers of the dermis, we conclude that “protofeathers” are probably the remains of collagenous fiber “meshworks” that reinforced the dinosaur integument.

In the second part of the study we examine evidence relating to the most critical character thought to link birds to derived theropods, a tridactyl hand composed of digits 1-2-3. We maintain the evidence supports interpretation of bird wing digit identity as 2,3,4, which appears different from that in theropod dinosaurs. The phylogenetic significance of Chinese microraptors is also discussed, with respect to bird origins and flight origins. We suggest that a possible solution to the disparate data is that Aves plus bird-like maniraptoran theropods (e.g., microraptors and others) may be a separate clade, distinctive from the main lineage of Theropoda, a remnant of the early avian radiation, exhibiting all stages of flight and flightlessness.

Even without these points, the claim is circular - it would in time 'strengthens' the shaky 'fact' it depended on.

Note, I am not claiming a lack of integrity of the researcher - just that he has made an erroneous claim, based on what he believes to be true.

NB4jesushatesevolutionitsalie faggotry [NT]

[Anonymous Coward]

NB4jesushatesevolutionitsalie faggotry

Tweet tweet?

[Anonymous Coward]

At what point do we just say they were outright birds?

Re:TFA is ad ridden blog

[Anonymous Coward]

Warning!That is child pornography! DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK! fucking disgusting, I hope you burn in hell you sick fuck

Re:TFA is ad ridden blog

[xevioso]

nonnono. It's not child porn; it's the goatse image. Still pretty bad.

Oh, somewhere in Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that narrows it right down doesn't it? Milky Way/Earth/Canada. Damn near down to a square micron. I'm just tired of people not giving some half decent location of something. Here, the article gives us "Canada", a very small area of 9,984,670 km2 (3,854,085 sq mi). Why, that's like the tip of a needle!

Re:Oh, somewhere in Canada?

[ledow]

Because the second you tell people where they were found, you get a billion people cutting through the rock to try to find their own, to keep or to sell on, destroying everything that is there.

soo... have they drilled the amber yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and just how much residual DNA _is_ in those feathers...?

Re:soo... have they drilled the amber yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and just how much residual DNA _is_ in those feathers...?

Bill Clinton wasn't alive back then, silly boy.

Found in Amber

[The_mad_linguist]

It was announced dinosaur feathers have been found in Amber this week. High placed French official Cordell Fennevall is on record as saying that this is a 'real discovery', and all other paleontological work this year will merely be its shadows.

Artistic renderings in this article were created by one Dworkin Barimen. All rights reserved.

Amber had 'no idea'...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amber stated in her affidavit that she had no idea how old that ostrich feather she took from the museum really was and that she is very sorry about where she stuck it in...

one of my better typos

[epine]

s/mental/mention

The vast majority of my typos are full word substitutions. No idea at all how that word leaked into the sentiment.

For some reason....

[MrNthDegree]

I imagined Amber Mac full of feathers :-|

It's a perfectly cromulent reference.

[zippthorne]

In the book, the lawyer survived (and, iirc, was actually not a bad guy...), and Hammond was killed in a fairly disturbing fashion.

Nevertheless, the quotes from the movie are more memorable. I don't think I can recall any of Muldoon's lines from the book...

They loved him once

[Quila]

And then he blasphemed against the Holy Church of Global Warming.

Re:They loved him once

[SETIGuy]

There isn't a science that he didn't misunderstand. And then write 500 pages of incoherent babble about. Climatologists weren't worried about him because he was incompetent to talk about any type of science. Ask anyone who has worked in chaos theory. Or medicine. Or biotech.

New Zealand's man-eating bird a few centuries back

[Anonymous Coward]

Maori / Maoriori in New Zealand did make a nice quarry by the sounds of things:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6185730/Legendary-man-eating-New-Zealand-bird-did-exist.html

Proto-feathers looked like these chickens

[Anonymous Coward]

I had several of these Silky Feather Chickens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie

Jesus?

[digitalPhant0m]

So let me get this straight. Jesus was riding a feathered Dinosaur.

Where's John Hammond when you need him?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait for Jurassic Farms. *licks chops*

UPS these feathers to InGen - like YESTERDAY!

Feathers found in Amber.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the hell has she been?

Re:TFA is ad-ridden blog

[Tolkien]

You really suck at trolling, so you're probably the slash* kid from a little while back. Stop it. Your parents should be ashamed of what you've become, though it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they already are.

Yeah, right...

[Anonymous Coward]

I smell dinosaur doo-doo.

Re:TFA is ad-ridden blog

[MrKaos]

The poster is actually a dinosaur troll from the lameassic age.

Calling Prince Corwin

[hawkfish]

Two jokes about women named "Amber" and none about the one true world?

Of course there are dinosaur feathers in Amber - our dinosaurs are just shadows of them.

This place is really going to the dogs!

Still circular

[sonamchauhan]

The "already known" fact that dinosaurs had protofeathers reinforces his theory, and his theory ends up reinforcing the "already known" fact?

Still seems circular to me.

http://www.icr.org/article/6398/

and

Feduccia, A., T. Lingham-Soliar and J. R. Hinchliffe. 2005. Do feathered dinosaurs exist? Testing the hypothesis on neontological and paleontological evidence. Journal of Morphology. 266 (2): 125.

See also 'Silkie chicken', referred to elsewhere in this thread

79-million-year-old amber

[Immigration.to.Canad]

Imagine how much that piece would fetch on eBay.