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POPSDinosaurs Diversified Over Time, not Suddenly During this epoch of riotous biodiversity, flowering plants, social insects, butterflies, modern groups of lizards, mammals, and possibly birds, too, all emerged. Some experts have suggested that dinosaurs were also part of the show, as so many weird fossils, such as duckbilled hadrosaurs, horned ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs and other wonders, date from this time. But a new study, published on Wednesday in a British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, says that dinosaurs were less than a sideshow in the DNA spectacular. Researchers led by Graeme Lloyd of the University of Bristol, western England, devised a "supertree" of dinosaur evolution, patiently analyzing how more than 450 species -- about 70 percent of the known finds -- developed.
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POPSDino diversity earlier than first thought Maybe there is the idea that species including the dinosaurs were trying to deal with conditions brought about by the meteor, so many adaptations arose, but nature loves nothing more than competition, even when times are good.
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POPSFlatfish caught evolving, thanks to its roving eye Now Friedman reports finding two different missing links. They are fossil fish with their eyes in different places on the two sides of their skulls - one in the normal position and one closer to the midline (see Diagram). One is Amphistium, a previously described genus found in several fossil deposits in Europe, in which the asymmetry went unnoticed because in fish fossils only one side of the animal is generally preserve. The other is Heteronectes, a new genus. At 10 to 20 centimetres long, the specimens were clearly adults and not larvae in which the eyes were migrating
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POPSREAL DRAGON FOSSILS ON DISPLAY IN CHINA
Some fossils, named the “China dragon fossils”, were recently exhibited in the Xinwei Ancient Life Fossils Museum in Anshun, Guizhou. When archeologists first stripped the clay off the fossil, they found the dragon had a pair of horns above its head and the shape of the dragon was very like the legendary animal often described in books and stories. Dragons have often appeared in Chinese legends. The dragon with two horns on its head is regarded as a totem. The totem was first invented by Chinese ancestors and worshipped by the Chinese people. Therefore Chinese people are also called the “descendents of the dragon”. For a long time, scientists thought that the dragon was a fictional animal existing only in stories. The dragon fossil was found in Guanling County, Anshun City, in 1996, and has been kept in a good condition. It is measured 7.6 meters long. Its head is 76 centimeters long and the neck is 54 centimeters long. The body is 2.7 meters in length and 68 centimeters in width
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POPSWorm-like Marine Animal Providing Fresh Clues About Human Evolution The human genome has only about 25 percent more genes than the amphioxus genome, according to Holland. During evolution, humans have duplicated genes for different functions. Such duplication has given humans and other vertebrates a much larger "toolkit" for making various structures that are absent in amphioxus, including cells for pigment and collagen type II-based cartilage, for example.
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POPSAssumptions in Polar Bear Populations What we do know about polar bears is that, contrary to media portrayals, they are not fragile "canary in the coal mine" animals, but are robust creatures that have survived past periods of extensive deglaciation. Polar bear fossils have been dated to over one hundred thousand years, which means that polar bears have already survived an interglacial period when temperatures were considerably warmer than they are at present and when, quite probably, levels of summertime Arctic sea ice were correspondingly low.
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POPSPyramids packed with fossil shells. They say that seashells prove that the rock was quarried, instead of cast in moulds. I can't imagine how making their own 10 tonne bricks in moulds would have made things any easier. Maybe just adding another stage to a process that was already a huge undertaking. I also heard once that after something is build it hasto 'settle' into into it's foundations, Very few builders or architects have been able to find a way to overcome this, but with their weight, and perfect seams with no mortar, the pyramids have only settled a fraction - perhaps a few inches, over thousands of years. Something that seems much more likely with solid rock than bricks. If only the library in Alexandria hadn't burned down with all of the blueprints.
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