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Four-legged Snake Fossil Stuns Scientists, Ignites Controversy
sciencehabit writes: Scientists have described what they say is the first known fossil of a four-legged snake. The limbs of the 120-or-so-million-year-old, 20-centimeter-long creature are remarkably well preserved and end with five slender digits that appear to have been functional (abstract). Thought to have come from Brazil, the fossil would be one of the earliest snakes found, suggesting that the group evolved from terrestrial precursors in Gondwana, the southern remnant of the supercontinent Pangaea. But although the creature's overall body plan—and indeed, many of its individual anatomical features—is snakelike, some researchers aren't so sure that it is a part of the snake family tree.
The biblical literalists are going to love this one.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The snake also recently stated that POW's are exempt from War Hero status.
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So it could breathe fire, as well? It sounds like they have not found a snake, but a fire-breathing dragon!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Surprised it wasn't classified as a skink though I'm more of a mammal enthusiast than a reptile one. Either way I'm curious if 20cm is its full grown size or if it is a baby dragon.
So wait they don't know where it could have come from? So some person could have made this in his backyard? Then this part don't help "The fossil had resided in a private collection for several decades....stumbled across the specimen during a field trip with students to Museum Solnhofen in Germany." So this thing has been sitting in Germany in a collection? Sounds like others have seen this in the past and no one said anything until now? Sorry this sounds like a BS story.
... does it run [on] Linux?
Oh wait, I'm thinking of that other snake.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Need to know if it can talk!
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Sorry, I had to do that one.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Four-legged Snake Fossil Interests Scientists, Ignites Scientific Interest
FTFY.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Mister Mojo Rising
This fossil was stolen..
[pt-br] http://noticias.uol.com.br/cie...
"120-or-so-million-year-old". Anything past 100 000 years is nothing but wild speculation, among other things due the complete lack of knowledge about factors that will affect carbon dating. Going past 100 000 years, and your're doing nothing but carbon-schmarbon dating.
No, no, you see we have always known the exact quantity of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere and therefore Carbon dating is extremely reliable. The fact that we are now changing the percentage of C14 in the air and worried that C14 dating will not work reliably because we don't know the proper percentages of C14 coexists perfectly with us knowing the exact quantity of C14 150 million years ago.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I glanced through the above story about Hillary and misread the title of this story as "Four legged Senate fossil..." but then I remembered that Stromberg Thurmond died a few years back.
I agree, you can be a war veteran and a prisoner of war but you can not be a war 'hero' if all you did was sit in jail... and this is what John McCain ddid for almost the whole war.
Uh, you are aware that he did do other things in the war, right? Sitting in jail (by which you mean, POW camp) is not "all" he did. It was his 23rd bombing mission, not his first, on which he was shot down. And that by this time he'd been awarded the Navy Commendation Medal and the Bronze Star.
I'm no fan of McCain, but I don't like personal attacks. Criticize him for his politics, not his history.
Nobody carbon dates fossils, idiot.
They use longer-lived isotope ratios, like uranium-lead, samarium-neodymium, potassium-argon, etc, among other (non-radiometric) methods.
On the surface it appears they are questioning cross-specie evolution and how amino acids starting forming proteins (presumably without any RNA / DNA). But it is really an argument toward theocracy and away from secular society. Good luck with that. One of their arguments again cross-specie evolution is the lack of transitional fossils. This may be determined to be such a fossil. I am no scientist, but every theory should be questioned, it is science.
With C14 halving every 5730 years, 120 My means 21000 halving steps. How many atoms of C14 are left to measure?
That's based on the same speculation as in the English article. It looks like it came from Brazil. It's been illegal to export fossils from Brazil since 1942. Therefore it may be an illegal export (or not, depending on when it was found/exported).
Which is not the same thing as stolen. Is there a record in Brazil of this fossil having been found and then going missing? Did somebody sneak into a known dig site in the dead of night and spirit this fossil away?
Hell, maybe somebody carefully faked this fossil (a la Piltdown Man) and then loaned it to the museum hoping it would be discovered by some curious paleontologist.
Oh, so they date the sand part of the sediment that was made into sedimentary rocks and consider THAT the age of the fossil?
You do realize that the elements you mention are pretty much not part of the fossil, but part of the substrate which contains the fossil. What you are suggesting they are doing is going to a wall built yesterday and claiming it's 100 years old because of the age of the barn wood that the wall was covered in.
I don't think the process of dating fossils is done that way... Last I heard they go to the geologists and ask them how old the rocks are.... Of course the question then becomes how the geologists know how old the rocks are.... I sure hope they don't go ask the biologists to date the fossils they see...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
> among other things due to my complete lack of knowledge about factors that will affect carbon dating.
There, FTFY. HTH.
...the missing link in the evolution of teatards!
This is Slashdot. Science is only questionable when it agrees with the bible.
Genesis 3:4, for those wondering what the sequence specifics are that are the current cause for rejecting science, if necessary.
Title seems to be simple click bait meant to attract creationists and their opponents.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Carbon dating is useless on fossils. Firstly because they are far too old for the ratio to be measurable, and secondly because they don't actually contain any carbon of atmospheric origin to date.
There are other forms of dating used for fossils though.
I like how it's hugging the little furry mammal in the artist's conception. It's representative of the long bond of love and friendship that exists between us and our reptilian friends.
-Styopa
You mean DRAGON!!!!!!
It doesn't matter. The "knowledge" of geological processes at that amount of time back is just an orgy in extrapolation and crazy speculation, period.
You get their point, dick-wad. There is no definitive knowledge of geological and other processes that span this far back. We simply can't date these things, and the current "knowledge" is just theory, mindless extrapolation and guess-work after doing blatant assumptions about the history of the planet.
So, you're saying the creationists could in theory be right?
There are other forms of dating used for fossils though.
And that's how I met your mother.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
...when they find one with a voice box. ;-)
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Carbon dating isn't used for things older than about 100,000 years. Anything older than that uses other radioisotypes to determine age, which don't vary with atmospheric composition.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
no
Actually, that's incorrect.
http://newgeology.us/presentation48.html
All fossils date less than 50,000 years. This is not a problem for creationists, but it makes evolutionists uncomfortable so they don't do it.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
But not because they don't contain Carbon-14. Everything contains Carbon-14 and most fossils date to around 25,000-30,000 years ago if you Carbon-14 date them.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Yep. This is EXACTLY how they date fossils 90+% of the time. And you believe it as if they did a test or something actually scientific.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Actually, this is a more correct statement than most people make on this subject. Both creationists and evolutionists have made wild guesses in the past that have turned out to be absolutely false. The lack of hard scientific data makes this field less scientific than most people realize.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
According to a paper which failed peer review.
Well, after it's been in the ground long enough, it doesn't contain carbon-14 any more, because it decayed to nitrogen. If you use carbon dating on those, there isn't enough left to get an accurate reading, which is exactly what you'd expect to happen.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Dozens of living two-legged snakes discovered in Washington, D.C.
It isn't. And to understand why it isn't, you'd have to actually study the subject. Which you won't.
Yes, we can date them. There is extrapolation and assumptions, but it is NOT mindless or guess-work. All the assumptions are well understood, and errors can be corrected for.
I recommend you read MacDougall's Nature's Clocks for a broad overview of how the process works.
Sure they have something. We don't know what it is. Since it's a fossil we don't know how it happened. Could it be something else happened to land on it after death or was below it before death? We don't know. Show me more with the bone structures in the same place. Then we'll have something. Now it's just a curiosity. Need more proof.