Darwin's "Warm Little Pond"

From BBC.com:

Life on Earth was unlikely to have emerged from volcanic springs or hydrothermal vents, according to a leading US researcher.

The findings are being discussed at an international two-day meeting to explore the latest thinking on the origin of life on Earth. David Deamer, emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of California at Santa Cruz, said ahead of his presentation: "It is about 140 years since Charles Darwin suggested that life may have begun in a 'warm little pond'. We are now testing Darwin's idea, but in 'hot little puddles' associated with the volcanic regions of Kamchatka [Russia] and Mount Lassen [California, US]."

"The results are surprising and in some ways disappointing. It seems that hot acidic waters containing clay do not provide the right conditions for chemicals to assemble themselves into 'pioneer organisms.'"

Professor Deamer said that amino acids and DNA, the "building blocks" for life, and phosphate, another essential ingredient, cling to the surfaces of clay particles in the volcanic pools.

"The reason this is significant is that it has been proposed that clay promotes interesting chemical reactions relating to the origin of life," he explained.

"However," he added, "in our experiments, the organic compounds became so strongly held to the clay particles that they could not undergo any further chemical reactions."

This seems to contradict this previous Palaeoblog entry.

Read the rest HERE.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy V Day from Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine, and the crocodiles.

Are Protochordates Chordates?

Image from HERE.

Are protochordates chordates? 2006. M. Raineri. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society Vol. 87: 261

Abstract:This paper challenges the widely accepted view that protochordates (lancelets and tunicates) should be included together with vertebrates within the monophyletic assemblage of the chordates since they share a few distinguishing characters, such as a dorsally located notochord and central nervous system (CNS). The homology of these axial structures is not supported convincingly by morphology and molecular biology. Besides, for notochord and CNS to be dorsal, the embryos of protochordates, unlike those of vertebrates, should be orientated with the blastopore coincident with the dorsal side. This embryonic orientation is never reported in other bilaterians and is inconsistent with the genetic control of the body axes. Alternatively, protochordates could be orientated just as the vertebrates according to the regulation of axial patterning. In this case, the notochord and CNS appear to be located on the ventral side. As suggested by molecular and structural data, they may correspond to the stomodaeal/ventral midline cells and CNS of gastroneuralians. This conclusion may have far-reaching implications concerning the origin of the vertebrates and the evolution of nervous systems and neural crest/placodes.


b, adult; c, larval tunicate. Image from HERE.

Hooke's Lost Manuscript Valued at £1million

A "lost" science manuscript from the 1600s found in a cupboard in a house during a routine valuation is expected to fetch more than £1m at auction.

The hand-written document - penned by Dr Robert Hooke - contains the minutes of the Royal Society from 1661 to 1682, experts said. It was found in a house in Hampshire, where it is thought to have lain hidden in a cupboard for about 50 years.

Dr Robert Hooke, who died in 1703, has been described as the unsung hero of science and "England's Leonardo". As one of the original Fellows of the Royal Society, Dr Hooke recorded hundreds of inventions, demonstrations and experiments by leading scientists, but his name is often forgotten. He published the world's first comprehensive illustrated book on microscopy and coined the word "cell".

He pioneered the modern watch, designed scientific instruments and devices, as well as the sash window, the velocipede, and the universal joint used in motorized vehicles. He also helped pave the way for the steam engine and, with Sir Christopher Wren, was responsible for rebuilding London after the Great Fire of 1666.

Image and article from the BBC.com site.

Spinosaurus Snout

Photos © William Monteleone

Here are some photos of a cast of the snout (displayed upside down) of what appears to be the Spinosaurus specimen MSNM V4047 discussed in this previous article. The photos were taken at the Tucson fossil show in 2002. It looks like they restored the teeth back to a more complete state.

Thanks to paleo-artist William Montelone for these. Visit his web site as www.studiomonteleone.com.

Seeing The Fossil Universe

Cosmological Magnetic Field: A Fossil of Density Perturbations in the Early Universe. 2006. K. Ichiki, et al. Science 311: 827 – 829.


Go to Mission Control.

From the abstract: The origin of the substantial magnetic fields that are found in galaxies and on even larger scales, such as in clusters of galaxies, is yet unclear. If the second-order couplings between photons and electrons are considered, then cosmological density fluctuations, which explain the large-scale structure of the universe, can also produce magnetic fields on cosmological scales before the epoch of recombination. By evaluating the power spectrum of these cosmological magnetic fields on a range of scales, we show here that magnetic fields of 10^–18.1 gauss are generated at a 1-megaparsec scale and can be even stronger at smaller scales. These fields are large enough to seed magnetic fields in galaxies and may therefore have affected primordial star formation in the early universe.

Born This Day: Barnum Brown

Feb. 12, 1873 – Feb. 5, 1963


Image from HERE.

From the AMNH bio:

The greatest dinosaur hunter of the twentieth century was Barnum Brown, who began his career at the American Museum of Natural History in 1897 as an assistant to Henry Fairfield Osborn. Brown traveled all over the world collecting dinosaurs and fossil mammals. Some consider him to be the last of the great dinosaur hunters.

Brown was always impeccably dressed, often wearing a tie and topcoat even in the field. He was a shrewd "horse trader" when it came to wheeling and dealing for fossil specimens. Many of Brown's greatest discoveries, including the first specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex ever found, are displayed in the Museum's Dinosaur Halls.

Read more about Brown HERE.

Born This Day: Charles Darwin

Feb. 12, 1809 – April 19, 1882



From the AMNH introduction to their exhibit on Darwin:

Keenly observing nature in all its forms—from fossil sloths to mockingbirds, primroses to children—Darwin saw that we all are related. Every living thing shares an ancestry, he concluded, and the vast diversity of life on Earth results from processes at work over millions of years and still at work today. Darwin's explanation for this great unfolding of life through time—the theory of evolution by natural selection—transformed our understanding of the living world, much as the ideas of Galileo, Newton and Einstein revolutionized our understanding of the physical universe.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection underlies all modern biology. It enables us to decipher our genes and fight viruses, and to understand Earth's fossil record and rich biodiversity. Simple yet at times controversial, misunderstood and misused for social goals, the theory remains unchallenged as the central concept of biology. Charles Darwin, reluctant revolutionary, profoundly altered our view of the natural world and our place in it.

Watch the American Museum of Natural History video on Darwin HERE, part of their current exhibit running to May 29, 2006.

Darwin’s biography from the British Library HERE.
Learn more about Darwin Days HERE.
Get you Darwin Birthday Party pins HERE.
The Darwin Awards are HERE.

My World? My Word!

Click to enlarge.


By all accounts Wally Wood led a troubled life but he created some of the best art to ever grace a comic book page. ‘My World’ is one of Wally’s most famous stories done for the EC Comics line back in the 50’s before McCarthy’s witch hunt shut them down. ‘My Word’ was Wally’s cynical reworking of that story done in the 1970’s for Flo Steinberg’s “Big Apple Comix" (Wally’s cover below). But man, could Wally ever draw dinosaurs!



For more info on the man, and a ton of great artwork, pick up the book, “Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood”.

Party Like It’s 1809!

From LiveScience:

Tomorrow is Darwin’s Birthday so Defenders of Darwin's theory of natural selection are planning hundreds of events around the world Sunday, the 197th anniversary of his birth, saying recent challenges to the teaching of evolution have re-emphasized the need to promote his work.



"The people who believe in evolution ... really just sort of need to stand up and be counted,'' said Richard Leventhal, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and the museum's celebration will include birthday cake, a little badminton (reportedly a favorite game of Darwin's) and a reading of his "The Origin of Species" by student Bill Wames, who volunteered to dress up as the 19th-century naturalist.

"Come to my party!" Wames, in costume, bellowed Wednesday while handing out fliers around campus. "Sunday at one o'clock!"

At the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, philosophy students will got a jump-start on Darwin Day on campus Friday by singing Darwin carols they composed.

Spinosaurus Rex?

New information on the skull of the enigmatic theropod Spinosaurus, with remarks on its size and affinities. 2005. C. Dal Sasso, et al. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 25: 888-896


Click to enlarge

From the London Telegraph comes this report:

Newly obtained remains of Spinosaurus suggest it stretched about 56ft from nose to tail and weighed about eight tons, dwarfing its closest rival meat-eaters.

The vicious behemoth preyed among the swamps, bogs and muddy river banks of the Sahara during the Cretaceous Period - about 100 million years ago. Unusually for a large predator, fossil evidence suggests most of its diet consisted of fish.

Analysis of skull fragments suggest that when Spinosaurus squared up to T.rex in the 2001 film Jurassic Park III, its gigantic proportions were under-estimated. Dr Paul Barratt, a dinosaur researcher at the Natural History Museum, said: "These measurements would make Spinosaurus considerably larger than T rex and the largest land-based predator ever to have lived."

Cristiano Dal Sasso and colleagues of the Civic Natural History Musuem in Milan, Italy, have carried out an examination of a spinosaur snout measuring 3ft 3in that was unearthed in Morocco. They also analysed previously unidentified bones from the upper rear of the skull. From these the researchers calculated that the skull was 5ft 9in long.

Note: Without having read the paper I'd suggest that extrapolating total body length (or even skull length) based on a few skull fragments is problematic at best.

3D Museum Now On-Line

Dr. Ryosuke Motani from the University of California and his colleagues have just launched 3DMuseum.org, a website displaying 3D shapes of bones and shells, both fossil and recent.

Whether you are a Mac, Windows, or Linux user, you should be able to play with 3D shapes as long as you have Java enabled (chances are you already have done so).

He hopes that this website will become a useful teaching and PR resources for our field, as the collection grows. Three different 3D file formats are provided, one of which is usable in PowerPoint presentations for your classes (unfortunately, this format (*.3dc) cannot reproduce vertex colors, so the objects are monotone). See the website for details.

The project is a part of an NSF grant, and the website is hosted by the Department of Geology, UC Davis.

Image: A 3D reconstruction of the shoulder girdle of the genus Ichthyosaurus (probably I. communis), used by McGowan and Motani (2003). It is impossible to make the coracoids contact the clavicles, as has been traditionally believed. Go to the web site to manipulate it in 3d space.

Polygon counts: Original 1,157,652; 30,000 before compression
Time: Early Jurassic(Sinemurian?)
Locality: Dorset, UK
Specimen: Cast

Furby As A Dinosaur

Watch the video HERE

This cute dino toy has 8 microprocessors that control 14 servomotors and respond to signals from 38 sensors. The dino also moves fluidly - it’s destined to be the must have toy of 2006!

Ugobe designers and engineers studied the long extinct Camarasaurus, a dinosaur from the Jurassic period. Pleo, a Ugobe Life Form is the authentic recreation born from that study. UGOBE's designers and engineers recreated Pleo's physiology from the fossils of the original. His height and weight are consistent with that of a one-week old infant Camarasuarus.

Pleo is equipped with senses for sight, sound, and touch. He learns as he explores his environment. He will exhibit genuine reactions to sensory stimuli. Every Pleo begins life with certain tendencies but, interaction with his environment has subtle effects on his behavior. Every Pleo eventually exhibits a unique personality.

Get more info from the Ugobe web site.

Voice of Gojira Silenced

From CBC.ca Arts & Entertainment:

Prolific Japanese composer Akira Ifukube, best known for writing many musical scores for the Godzilla film franchise, has died at the age of 91.

Over his lifetime, Ifukube composed hundreds of musical works, including 1935's Japanese Rhapsody, an early piece that won a young composers prize established by Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin and helped bring him to international attention.

Born in 1914, Ifukube grew up in the city of Kushiro, located on Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido. He was highly influenced by the island's indigenous Ainu people and, after teaching himself to compose music as a teen, chose to weave the Ainu's improvisational musical style with that of his favourite Western classical composers, such as Igor Stravinsky.

In the late 1940s, Ifukube began composing film scores. His most famous was the score he composed for Ishiro Honda's 1954 black-and-white classic Gojira (a combination of the Japanese words for gorilla and whale). Translated to Godzilla in English, the movie spawned many installments and became a cult hit franchise around the globe.

The classical composer also had a hand in creating two of the monster franchise's most famous sound effects: the giant lizard's roar and its heavy footfalls. Over the years, Japan bestowed several honours on Ifukube, the most recent of which was in 2003 when he was named a person of cultural merit — one of the country's most distinguished honours.

Images from HERE and HERE

New Crested Tyrannosaur

A basal tyrannosauroid dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of China. 2006. Xing Xu, James M. Clark, Catherine A. Forster, Mark A. Norell, Gregory M. Erickson, David A. Eberth, Chengkai Jia and Qi Zhao. Nature 439: 715-718


Illustration courtesy Zhongda Zhang/IVPP

Abstract: The tyrannosauroid fossil record is mainly restricted to Cretaceous sediments of Laurasia, although some very fragmentary Jurassic specimens have been referred to this group. Here we report a new basal tyrannosauroid, Guanlong wucaii gen. et sp. nov., from the lower Upper Jurassic of the Junggar Basin, northwestern China. G. wucaii is the oldest known tyrannosauroid and shows several unexpectedly primitive pelvic features. Nevertheless, the limbs of G. wucaii share several features with derived coelurosaurs, and it possesses features shared by other coelurosaurian clades. This unusual combination of character states provides an insight into the poorly known early radiation of the Coelurosauria. Notably, the presumed predatory Guanlong has a large, fragile and highly pneumatic cranial crest that is among the most elaborate known in any non-avian dinosaur and could be comparable to some classical exaggerated ornamental traits among vertebrates.

From National Geographic.com:

The earliest in a line of dinosaurs that gave rise to Tyrannosaurus rex has been discovered in China.

Scientists say the 160-million-year-old Guanlong wucaii ("crowned dragon") which had simple feathers and an elaborate head crest, is the oldest known tyrannosaur—a group of swift, flesh-eating dinos that culminated in T. rex some 90 million years later. The diminutive dinosaur stood 1.1 meters tall and measured 3 meters long.

Two specimens of the previously unknown dinosaur have been found in the fossil-rich badlands of Xinjiang province in northwest China. The primitive tyrannosaurs were discovered together. They appeared to have become fatally trapped in a prehistoric mud pit, according to Xing Xu, professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, China. The carnivores were possibly lured to their deaths by other mud-stricken animals, which also left behind fossil remains.

About as thick as a tortilla and 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) high, the crest certainly wouldn't have been much use as a weapon, said study co-author James M. Clark, biology professor at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Fossil bone-growth rings suggest one animal died at age 12, while the other was only 6. This younger specimen, yet to reach sexual maturity, had a much smaller crest.

The team identified Guanlong as a tyrannosaur based on a number of physical characteristics, including U-shaped front teeth, the makeup of its pelvis, and the shape of its skull. Unlike T. rex, however, the animal had three finger-claws instead of two, a shallow snout, and long arms. "Guanlong represents a specialized lineage very early in the evolution of tyrannosauroids, so it has only a few features of this group," study co-author Clark said.

Read the Florida State University Press release for more information and the part that Dr. Greg Erickson played in the research.

The Incredible Hulk on “I.D.”

Dr. Bruce Banner and his alter ego, The Hulk, debate “intelligent design” in this article by Mike Powers. Some excerpts:

Hulk: Hulk like church. Hulk like songs about how God is good, and Hulk talk to God. God tell Hulk that he is special, and that Hulk is better than puny humans. God made me better than puny humans, God made Hulk in his own image.

Bruce: Hulk, the reason you’re hyper evolved has nothing to do with God. It was a mistake of the cosmos. You got hit by some rays, right place right time, and now you’re bigger and stronger than everyone.

Presented This Day: Mendel's First Paper

From Today In Science History:

In 1865, Gregor Mendel, aged 42, read his first scientific paper to the Brünn Society for the study of Natural Sciences in Moravia (published 1866). He described his investigations with pea plants. Although he sent 40 reprints of his article to prominent biologists throughout Europe, including Darwin, only one was interested enough to reply. Most of the reprints, including Darwin’s, were discovered later with the pages uncut, meaning they were never read. Fortunately, 18 years after Mendel's death, three botanists in three different countries researching the laws of inheritance, in spring 1900, came to realize that Mendel had found them first. Mendel was finally acknowledged as a pioneer in the field which became known as genetics.

Image from HERE

The Evolution of Shark ‘ESP’

Developmental origin of shark electrosensory organs. 2006. Renata Freitas et al. Evolution & Development 8: 74-80

From the U of Florida press release:

Researchers have traced the uncanny ability of sharks to detect electrical signals while hunting and navigating to the same type of embryonic cells that gives rise to many head and facial features in humans.

The discovery identifies neural crest cells, which are common in vertebrate development, as a source of sharks' electrical ESP. It also fortifies the idea that before our early ancestors emerged from the sea, they too had the ability to detect electric fields.


How the lateral line works from HERE

"If you think of this in the big picture of evolution of sensory systems, such as olfaction, hearing, vision and touch, this shows sharks took a pre-existing genetic program and used it to build yet another type of sensory system," Cohn said. The process mirrors the development of the lateral line that allows fish to mechanically sense their environment, and organs of the inner ear that enable people to keep their balance. But scientists suspect as human ancestors emerged from the sea, they discarded their lateral lines as well as their ability to sense electrical fields.

"Our fishy ancestors had the anatomy for it," said James Albert, a former UF biologist who is now at the University of Louisiana. "You can imagine how valuable this system would be if you were aquatic, because water is so conductive. But it doesn't work on land - air doesn't conduct electricity as well. When it happens, it's called a lightning bolt and you don't need special receptors to sense it."

Image from HERE

Lost World Found

From the Conservation International press release:

Lost bird of paradise found in isolated Foja mountains of Papua, along with new honeyeater bird, new frogs and a rare tree kangaroo.

An expedition into the depths of New Guinea captured the first photos ever seen of exotic birds such as a male Berlepsch's Six-Wired Bird of Paradise (Parotia berlepschi). It also found a new large mammal for Indonesia – the Golden-mantled Tree Kangaroo (Dendrolagus pulcherrimus), formerly known from only a single mountain in neighboring Papua New Guinea.

"It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," marveled Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the expedition. The discoveries solved one major ornithological mystery – the location of the homeland of Berlepsch's Six-Wired Bird of Paradise. First described in the late 19th century through specimens collected by indigenous hunters from an unknown location on New Guinea, the species had been the focus of several subsequent expeditions that failed to find it.

The expedition took place almost 25 years after Jared Diamond startled the scientific world in 1981 with his discovery of the forest homeland of the Golden-fronted Bowerbird in the same mountain range. This time, scientists captured the first photographs ever of the Golden-fronted Bowerbird displaying at its bower – a tower of twigs and other forest materials it builds for the mating ritual.

The new species of honeyeater, the first new bird discovered on the island of New Guinea since 1939, has a bright orange face-patch with a pendant wattle under each eye. Other discoveries included what may be the largest rhododendron flower on record – almost six inches across – along with more than 20 new frogs and four new butterflies.

Happy Birthday To: Jim Farlow

Jim’s a paleontologist working at Indiana-Purdue University in Fort Wayne. In addition to being a great guy he’s published a lot of interesting papers on dinosaur footprints and behavior. If you’ve not already done so you should pick up the book The Complete Dinosaur that he co-edited with Michael Brett-Surman. All the best to Jim!

Image from HERE.

Official Food of SVP 2006

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference will be in my home town of Ottawa, Ontario later this year. As the date approaches I’ll have recommendations to give you on places to see, places to eat, and various other aspects of the city. But for now I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to post the above cartoon that comments on possibly Canada’s only unique culinary delight, poutine. Yes, it really does exist and will render you comatose by the time you’ve finished the plate – be sure to ask for extra gravy!

The cartoon posted above is from ‘Betty’ one of the better nationally syndicated strips, created and drawn by two Canadians, Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen living in Edmonton the last time I checked. And there is even a palaeo-connection. The strip started out as “Bub Slug: Waterfall Repairman” in the University of Alberta’s (now home to Phil Currie and Eva Koppelhus) student newspaper, The Gateway, before graduating to running as a full page colour strip once a week in the Edmonton Journal. Sometime after that the strip was reworked for international success and Bub’s wife Betty took over the strips' title. As far as I know only John (The Nature Nut) Acorn – radio host of the ‘Deep Alberta’ show for the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology on CKUA --has a full archived run of all of the pre-Betty strips, all of which I mean to scan one day.

And Edmonton really does have an artificial waterfall which apparently costs a cool one million dollars every time they turn it on.

Born This Day: Mary Leakey

Feb. 6, 1913 – Dec. 9, 1996

From the Minnesota State University site:

Mary Douglas Nicol Leakey was in London, England. She meet her future husband, Louis Leakey, when he asked her to illustrate his book, 'Adam’s Ancestors'. Mary and Louis spent from 1935 to 1959 at Olduvai Gorge in the Serengeti Plains of northern Tanzania where they worked to reconstruct many Stone Age cultures dating as far back as 100,000 to two million years ago. They documented stone tools from primitive stone-chopping instruments to multi-purpose hand axes.

In October of 1947, while on Rusinga Island, Mary unearthed a Proconsul africanus skull, the first skull of a fossil ape ever to be found. It was dated to be twenty million years old. An Australopithecus boisei skull was uncovered in 1959. Not long afterwards, a less robust Homo habilis was found. In 1965 the duo uncovered a Homo erectus cranium.

After her husband died in 1972, Mary continued her work at Olduvai and Laetoli. She discovered Homo fossils at Laetoli which were more than 3.75 million years old, fifteen new species and one new genus. From 1978-81 Mary and her staff worked to uncover the Laetoli hominid footprint trail which was left in volcanic ashes 3.6 million years ago.

Image from HERE where you will also find a slightly more colourful account of her life with Louis.

A Flock of Dodos

From the blog at Nature.com:

Kendall Powell travels to Kansas City for the first public screening and discussion of a controversial film about the intelligent design debate. She writes back from the scene to tell us about Flock of Dodos: the Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus.

Learn more about the film and watch the trailer at www.flockofdodos.com.

More Bird-Dino Debate

Archaeopteyrx by Pavel Říha from HERE.

Matt Carrano, Thomas R. Holtz Jr., Larry Martin, and Alan Feduccia are amongst those quoted in this Feb. 2 article in the Washington Times about the bird-dinosaur ‘controversy'. You may have to register to read it.

Alan Feduccia, an evolutionary biologist and former chairman of the Biology Department at the University of North Carolina, does not believe the structures found on the Chinese fossils are feathers. He contends in his paper "Do Feathered Dinosaurs Exist? Testing the Hypothesis on Neontological and Paleontological Evidence" that the structures found in these dinosaurs are collagen fibers, which are proteins that often form the connective tissues of animals. "I would contend that there's no such thing as feathered dinosaurs," Mr. Feduccia says. "They have a feathery appearance, but have nothing to do with feathers."

See more of Pavel Říha’s work HERE.

Born This Day: Alexandre Brongniart

Feb. 5, 1770 - Oct. 7, 1847.

Brongniart was a French mineralogist, geologist, and naturalist, who first arranged the geologic formations of the Tertiary Period (from 66.4 to 1.6 million years ago) in chronological order and described them. He made the first systematic study of trilobites that became important in determining the chronology of Paleozoic strata (from 540 to 245 million years ago). He helped introduce the principle of geologic dating by the identification of distinctive fossils found in each stratum and noted that the Paris formations had been created under alternate freshwater and saltwater conditions.

Image from HERE.

Sasquatch Family Tree

Molecular cryptozoology meets the Sasquatch. 2006. Coltman D and Davis, C. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 21(2):60-61.

"In July 2005, nine residents of Teslin, Yukon, witnessed through a kitchen window a large bipedal animal moving through the brush. The next morning, they collected a tuft of coarse, dark hair and also observed a footprint measuring 43 cm in length and 11.5 cm in width."

When the hair was analyzed here's what they found:


Maximum parsimony tree illustrating the position of the Sasquatch hair sample. Bootstrap support values are given at the nodes. The species and GenBank accession numbers are water buffalo Bubalus bubalis, yak Bos mutus, cow Bos taurus, wisent Bos bonasus, and North American bison Bison bison.

Bipedal, primate-like bison? – the mind boggles!

Thanks to the Pharyngula Blog for pointing this out!

Born This Day: Gideon Mantell

Feb. 3, 1790 – Nov. 10, 1852

Mantell, a physician of Lewes in Sussex in southern England, had for years been collecting fossils in the sandstone of Tilgate forest, and he had discovered bones belonging to three extinct species: a giant crocodile, a plesiosaur, and Buckland's Megalosaurus. But in 1822 he found several teeth that "possessed characters so remarkable" that they had to have come from a fourth and distinct species of Saurian. After consulting numerous experts, Mantell finally recognized that the teeth bore an uncanny resemblance to the teeth of the living iguana, except that they were twenty times larger.
In this paper, the second published description of a dinosaur, he concluded that he had found the teeth of a giant lizard, which he named Iguanodon, or "Iguana-tooth."

Mantell illustrated his announcement with a single lithographed plate. Mantell included at the bottom of the plate a drawing of a recent iguana jaw, which is shown four times natural size, and for further comparison, he added views of the inner and outer surface of a single iguana tooth, "greatly magnified."

The traditional story that Mantell's wife found the first teeth in 1822, while the doctor was visiting a patient, appears, alas, to be unfounded.

Info and plate from HERE.

Night At The Museum

From the article by Marc Gadoury:

“The company beauceronne DinoET received the order to build two animals for the film "Night At the Museum" that starts production next month in Vancouver.

Mr. Eloi Thibodeau is the owner of the company, located in Beauceville, Quebec, which specializes in the manufacture of glass fibre sculptures. He explains that it took two months of work to produce the elephant and the skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex which will be used in film.” (translated by Google)

Images from HERE.
Thanks to Chad Kerychuk for pointing this out to us!
Check out Chad’s PIXAR blog.

Early Animal Life Linked To Clay Production

Late Precambrian Oxygenation; Inception of the Clay Mineral Factory. 2006. Martin Kennedy et al. Science Express Feb. 2, 2006.



Abstract: An enigmatic stepwise increase in oxygen in the late Precambrian is widely considered a prerequisite for the expansion of animal life. Accumulation of oxygen requires organic matter burial in sediments, which is largely controlled by the sheltering or preservation by detrital clay minerals in modern marine continental margin depocenters. Here we show mineralogical and geochemical evidence for an increase in clay mineral deposition in the Neoproterozoic that immediately predated the first metazoans. Today most clay minerals originate in biologically active soils, so initial expansion of a primitive land biota would greatly enhance production of pedogenic clay minerals (the "clay mineral factory"), leading to increased marine burial of organic carbon via mineral surface preservation.



From the U of C – Riverside press release:

Clay made animal life possible on Earth. A sudden increase in oxygen in the Earth's recent geological history, widely considered necessary for the expansion of animal life, occurred just as the rate of clay formation on the Earth's surface also increased, the researchers report.

"Our study shows for the first time that the initial soils covering the terrestrial surface of Earth increased the production of clay minerals and provided the critical geochemical processes necessary to oxygenate the atmosphere and support multicellular animal life,"

Analyzing old sedimentary rocks, the researchers found evidence of an increase in clay mineral deposition in the oceans during a 200 million year period that fell between 1.1 to 0.54 billion years ago – a stretch of time known as the late Precambrian when oxygen suddenly increased in the Earth's atmosphere. The increases in clay formation and oxygen shortly preceded – in geological time – the first animal fossils about 600 million years ago.



The study emphasizes the possibility that colonization of the land surface by a primitive terrestrial ecosystem (possibly involving fungi) accelerated clay formation, as happens in modern soils. Upon being washed down to the sea, the clay minerals were responsible for preserving more organic matter in marine sediments than had been the case in the absence of clays. Organic matter preservation results in an equal portion of oxygen released to the atmosphere through the chemical reaction of photosynthesis. Thus an increase in the burial of organic carbon made it possible for more oxygen to escape into the atmosphere.

Images from HERE

Complex Genetic Trait Evolves In Lab

Evolution of a Polyphenism by Genetic Accommodation. 2006. Yuichiro Suzuki and H. Frederik Nijhout. Science 311: 650-652.



Abstract: Polyphenisms are adaptations in which a genome is associated with discrete alternative phenotypes in different environments. Little is known about the mechanism by which polyphenisms originate. We show that a mutation in the juvenile hormone-regulatory pathway in Manduca sexta enables heat stress to reveal a hidden reaction norm of larval coloration. Selection for increased color change in response to heat stress resulted in the evolution of a larval color polyphenism and a corresponding change in hormonal titers through genetic accommodation. Evidently, mechanisms that regulate developmental hormones can mask genetic variation and act as evolutionary capacitors, facilitating the origin of novel adaptive phenotypes.

From the Duke University press release:

Biologists have evolved a complex trait in the laboratory using the pressure of selection to induce tobacco hornworms to evolve the dual trait of turning black or green depending on the temperature during their development.

Their experiments, they said, offer important insight into how complex traits involving many genes can abruptly "blossom" in an organism's evolution.

The complex traits, or "polyphenisms," they studied are instances in which animals with the same genetic makeup can produce quite different traits, or phenotypes, in different environments. While biologists have understood the basic machinery underlying polyphenisms, the mystery remained how such complex traits, which involve mutations in multiple genes, could evolve and persist.

In their experiments, Suzuki and Nijhout chose a species of finger-sized tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta, which normally produces only green larvae. Because a related species, Manduca quinquemaculata, develops black or green larvae when exposed to lower or higher temperatures, the researchers theorized that they could use temperature shocks to evolve a similar polyphenism in M. sexta.

After rearing and selecting ten generations of caterpillars, with about 300 caterpillars per generation, the researchers found that they had, indeed, created the two distinct strains. The polyphenic strain would develop a green color at higher temperatures, altering abruptly at a temperature of about 28 degrees C. In contrast, the monophenic strain remained black at all temperatures.

According to Nijhout, the generation of polyphenism in the caterpillar demonstrates an evolutionary phenomenon called "genetic accommodation." In this process, a mutation in a regulatory pathway such as a hormonal pathway changes the hormonal level to bring it closer to a threshold level that could be affected by environmental variation.

Fossil DNA Preserved in Crystal

Relatively well preserved DNA is present in the crystal aggregates of fossil bones. 2005. Michal Salamon et al. PNAS 102: 13783-13788.

From the press release from the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science:

Fossil DNA is a potential source of information on the evolution, population dynamics, migrations, diets and diseases of animals and humans. But if it is not well preserved or becomes contaminated by modern DNA, the results are uninterpretable.

The scientists, Prof. Steve Weiner and Michal Salamon of the Institute's Structural Biology Department, working in collaboration with Profs. Baruch Arensburg, Tel Aviv University, and Noreen Tuross, Harvard University, may have found a way to overcome these problems.

In 1986 that Weiner first reported the existence of crystal clusters in fresh bones. Even when these bones are ground up and treated with sodium hypochlorite – a substance that removes all traces of organic matter – the clusters of crystals remain intact and the organic material embedded in them is unaffected. Now, almost 20 years later, Weiner and Salamon have returned to these findings, reasoning that fossil bones might possess such crystal structures containing preserved ancient DNA.



After treating two modern and six fossil animal bones with the sodium hypo-chlorite, they found that DNA could be extracted from most of these crystal aggregates that is better preserved and contains longer fragments than DNA from untreated ground bone. The technique for reading the DNA worked better, as well, and the use of sodium hypochlorite reduces the possibility of modern contamination.

The crystal aggregates act as a "privileged niche in fossil bone," protecting the DNA from hostile environments and leaving it relatively undamaged over time. The team's findings suggest that the DNA in these aggregates should be preferred, whenever possible, over DNA from untreated bone.

1934 World's Fair Dinos

click to enlarge

Some pages from the brochure that Sinclair gave away at the 1934 World's Fair at their dinosaur exhibit.

Thanks to Dan V. for the correction!

Horned Lizard Blood Squirting Video

Image from HERE.

National Geographic.com has up a short video clip showing how the horned-lizard (Phrynosoma) can squirt blood from its eye socket as a defensive measure. You’ll have to watch a short ad before the clip starts though.

Click HERE to watch the clip.

Deep Space + Time = 3D Fossils

Paleobiologist J. William Schopf and colleagues have produced 3-D images of ancient fossils -- 650 million to 850 million years old -- preserved in rocks, an achievement that has never been done before.

If a future space mission to Mars brings rocks back to Earth, Schopf said the techniques he has used, called confocal laser scanning microscopy and Raman spectroscopy, could enable scientists to look at microscopic fossils inside the rocks to search for signs of life, such as organic cell walls. These techniques would not destroy the rocks.

Confocal microscopy uses a focused laser beam to make the organic walls of the fossils fluoresce, allowing them to be viewed in three dimensions. The technique, first used by biologists to study the inner workings of living cells, is new to geology.

Raman spectroscopy allows you to see the molecular and chemical structure of ancient microorganisms in three dimensions, revealing what the fossils are made of without destroying the samples. This technique involves a laser from a microscope focused on a sample; most of the laser light is scattered, but a small part gets absorbed by the fossil.

"It's very difficult to get any insight about the biochemistry of organisms that lived nearly a billion years ago, and this gives it to you. You see the cells in the confocal microscopy, and the Raman spectroscopy gives you the chemistry”, said Schopf.


Mars & art © Mark Wheatley & Marc Hempel. Buy Mars HERE

His research is published in the January issue of the journal Astrobiology, in which he reports confocal microscopy results of the ancient fossils. (He published ancient Raman spectroscopy 3-D images of ancient fossils in 2005 in the journal Geobiology.)

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Published This Day: Apatosaurus Monograph

In 1936 Charles Gilmore published the paper “Osteology of Apatosaurus with special reference to specimens in the Carnegie Museum”. Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum 11: 175-300.

Great Movies: Inherit The Wind (1960)

Even though all the names were changed, the 1960 film "Inherit the Wind" was clearly about the real-life Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, which pitted Darwin's theory of evolution against creationism in court.

Movie Critic Roger Ebert has posted another “great movie” review at his web site, this time covering the classic ‘Inherit the Wind’. Here’s an excerpt:

I wonder if a film made today would have the nerve to question fundamentalism as bluntly as the Tracy character does? The beliefs he argues against have crept back into view as "creationist science," and it was the notion that this should be offered as an alternative to Darwinism that inspired the 2005 Pennsylvania case. In the movie and in the actual Scopes trial, Bryan was a persuasive orator who proudly defended fundamentalism; his 2005 counterparts carefully distanced themselves from religious advocacy and tried to make their case on the basis of "creationist science." Their presentation was so unpersuasive that Judge John E. Jones III (a Republican appointed by George W. Bush) not only ruled against them but added that they exhibited "striking ignorance" and "breathtaking inanity" and "lied outright under oath."

With creationism back in the news recently I’m pleased to be reminded to recommend this classic film about the 1925 ‘Scopes Monkey Trail’. It’s well worth watching and I’d recommend showing’Inherit The Wind’ to students in biology classes at the high school or introductory university level to simulate discussion about this issue that just will not away. Plus it’s a great film.

Fun Film Facts: the ‘Scopes’ character is played by Dick York, the future “Darren Stevens’ on ‘Bewitched', and the presiding judge is played by Harry Morgan of future ‘Dragnet’ and ‘M*A*S*H’ fame.

For photos from the actual trial go to the Smithsonian Institution Archives HERE.

Darrow's expenses were paid by the Baltimore Sun papers, home of the famed journalist H.L. Mencken, who covered the trial with many snorts and guffaws. For those of you who are fond of appending quotes to the bottom of your e-mails you should check out those of Mencken who was a master on par with Wilde.