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Dinosaur Brains Flight-Ready Long Before They Took To the Air
An anonymous reader writes "Dinosaurs evolved the brain power for flight long before they took to the air, new evidence presented in the journal Nature suggests. Contrary to the cliche, a 'bird brain' describes a relatively enlarged brain with the capacity required for flight. However, based on high-resolution X-ray computed tomographic (CT) scans, researchers found that at least a few non-avian dinosaurs had brains as large or larger than Archaeopteryx, one of the earliest known birds, indicating that some dinosaurs already suspected of flight capability would have had the neurological tools to do so."
The brains allowed them to stand in long lines waiting for their genitals to be groped, and then subject to horrible service and food?
rewriting history since 2109
It's probably brain to body size.
The Neanderthals had bigger brains than us (and so does elephants), but our brains are larger compared to our bodies.
researchers found that at least a few non-avian dinosaurs had brains as large or larger than Archaeopteryx, one of the earliest known birds, indicating that some dinosaurs already suspected of flight capability would have had the neurological tools to do so.
So if something has a brain bigger than something that we know can fly, it could probably learn to fly too if you stuck wings on it? T. Rex brains were larger than humans', but I wouldn't fancy one's chances at beating me at Streetfighter II.
In the interests of balance and reason, I should say that I'm going to assume we're missing out on some key facts thanks to some dumbed-down reporting, not because the researchers aren't doing proper science.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
"How much intelligence do you need to sneak up on a leaf?"
Low hanging fruit. Low hanging fruit.
Anyway, I'm not sure picking up a tray of beef at the grocery store takes any more or less brain power than picking up a box of lentils.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
And yes, the Archaeopteryx is not a bird, but an extremely close relative to the first bird. The paraves include the aviales, which are "the birds".
I seem to remember being taught there weren't any flying dinosaurs. Pterodactyl, Pteranodon, etc, weren't dinosaurs, they were reptiles.
Never studied it intensely, so it could be a matter of details though.
There were flying dinosaurs. In fact, there still are flying dinosaurs. The ones that still exist are commonly referred to as "birds". They are theropods.
"How much intelligence do you need to sneak up on a leaf?"
To sneak up on a leaf? Not much. To avoid getting eaten by a lion while you're sneaking up on a leaf? Quite a bit more apparently.
The African buffalo is reportedly rather more intelligent than you might suspect. There are numerous reports of communication, team work and even engaging in vindictive group behaviour like pursuing lions and killing lion cubs.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This article does seem like it counter evolution the way it was stated.
What was more accurate was the brains were doing something else that would allow for an easy migration to flight.
Such as our thumb, our ancient Monkey like relieves had thumbs, like us, however they didn't use tools, they used them to help with climbing. As we evolved further we found the tools that we had for climbing came in rather handy for tools too.
Evolution has a lot of random elements, and it isn't survival of the fittest per say but survival of the luckiest... However the one who were lucky to be more fit then the other would tend to have an advantage... However not always, sometimes something silly as having a brighter color or a lump in the right spot, did more to attract mates then giving them a normal survival advantage, in some cases due to its random nature becomes more of a problem to normal survival... However it was good enough to get to the next generation.
The Intelligent Design folks state on how perfect the human body is... However we are not perfect by any means. Child Birth complication as a trade-off to being able to walk upright, or our noes when it is stuffed hinders breathing! We are prone to a bunch of aliments. But what we had was good enough to pass onto the next generation. In many ways Trees are more "evolved" then we are, they can survive much more then we can.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The MSNBC journalist is reading way, way too much from the Nature paper. All the latter (and its cited sources) say is that a large brain is thought to be a prerequisite for flight, and that the overall brain morphology found in birds is also found in dinosaurs. The journalist implicitly assumes that this brain morphology has evolved for flight, but this is not a given. Bats have a different brain morphology (though there are some similarities) and are quite nimble fliers. Also, feathers are useful for flight (though bats don't have them), but they're also great for keeping warm (anyone ever tried a feather comforter?), and non-flying dinosaurs had them possibly for that purpose. I'm chalking the present finding in the same column as the feathers: turns out having a large brain with strong and fast spatial visualization ability is useful for other things than flying (who'd have thought, right?), and that avians simply inherited this trait from dinosaurs along with their brain morphology (and undoubtedly fine-tuned it). If anything, the present research adds to the (bat-brain) evidence saying that the overall brain morphology found in birds didn't specifically evolve for the purpose of flight.
Exactly what I was thinking. Is a flying squirrel similarly adapted today?
Or is this supposedly flight enhanced brain just the ability to visualize and process one's movements in a 3d space significantly larger than one's own body size?
If so, it might be nothing more than the ability to conceive/visualize converging trajectories beyond the immediate reach of teeth and claws. Typical predator pursuit behavior, in other words.