WKUHilltopper
Well-Known Member
Now how do they know these are "dinosaur feathers"?? Must have little microscopic labels, we can't see with the naked eyed, reading "these are dinosaur feathers".
Even though the article already proclaims these are dinosaur feathers, at least they quoted a scientist saying "They can't determine which feathers belonged to birds or dinosaurs yet". But still--this guy apparently believes birds evolved from dinos. They've been trying for decades to sell the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
I say they aren't dinosaur feathers--but horse feathers instead!
Click the link for the photos.
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Dinosaur Feathers Discovered in Canadian Amber
Today a group of paleontologists announced the results of an extensive study of several well-preserved dinosaur feathers encased in amber. Their work, which included samples from many stages in the evolution of feathers, bolstered the findings of other scientists who've suggested that dinosaurs (winged and otherwise) had multicolored and transparent feathers of the sort you might see on birds today. The researchers also presented evidence, based on the feathers' pigmentation and structures, that today's bird feathers could have evolved from dinosaur feathers.
We've got a gallery of these intriguing feathers preserved in amber.
In a profile of lead researcher Ryan McKellar, The Atlantic's Hans Villarica writes:
These specimens represent distinct stages of feather evolution, from early-stage, single filament protofeathers to much more complex structures associated with modern diving birds . . . They can't determine which feathers belonged to birds or dinosaurs yet, but they did observe filament structures that are similar to those seen in other non-avian dinosaur fossils.
Villarica also did io9 readers a favor and asked McKellar whether this discovery could lead to a Jurassic Park scenario. McKellar said:
Put simply, no. The specimens that we examined are extremely small and would not be expected to contain any DNA material. To put this into context, the only genetic material that has been recovered from amber is from lumps of mummified insect muscle tissue in much younger Dominican amber that are approximately 17 million years old and well after the age of dinosaurs.
So much for our dreams of dino domination.
What you'll notice in the gallery below is that the researchers are emphasizing two basic pieces of evidence: the similarity in coloration to today's bird feathers, and the similarity in morphology or shape. Some of these feathers strongly resemble those of diving water birds today (and the researchers include one example of a modern diving bird feather so you can compare them). Other structures, however, look nothing like feathers of today. In a news report about McKellar's findings in Science, Sid Perkins writes:
In one instance, the amber holds regularly spaced, hollow filaments, each of which is about 16 micrometers in diameter, about the size of the finest human hair. The filaments apparently have no cell walls, so they're not plant fibers or fungal threads, McKellar says. And they don't have features that look like small scales, as mammal hair does. "We don't absolutely know what they are, but we're pretty sure what they're not," he notes. They could be protofeathers, McKellar says.
Often this kind of structure is called "dinofuzz."
Check out the feathers and the fuzz for yourself. All captions are taken from materials provided by the researchers in their paper, published today in Science.
Dinosaur Feathers Discovered in Canadian Amber
Even though the article already proclaims these are dinosaur feathers, at least they quoted a scientist saying "They can't determine which feathers belonged to birds or dinosaurs yet". But still--this guy apparently believes birds evolved from dinos. They've been trying for decades to sell the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
I say they aren't dinosaur feathers--but horse feathers instead!
Click the link for the photos.
===================================
Dinosaur Feathers Discovered in Canadian Amber
Today a group of paleontologists announced the results of an extensive study of several well-preserved dinosaur feathers encased in amber. Their work, which included samples from many stages in the evolution of feathers, bolstered the findings of other scientists who've suggested that dinosaurs (winged and otherwise) had multicolored and transparent feathers of the sort you might see on birds today. The researchers also presented evidence, based on the feathers' pigmentation and structures, that today's bird feathers could have evolved from dinosaur feathers.
We've got a gallery of these intriguing feathers preserved in amber.
In a profile of lead researcher Ryan McKellar, The Atlantic's Hans Villarica writes:
These specimens represent distinct stages of feather evolution, from early-stage, single filament protofeathers to much more complex structures associated with modern diving birds . . . They can't determine which feathers belonged to birds or dinosaurs yet, but they did observe filament structures that are similar to those seen in other non-avian dinosaur fossils.
Villarica also did io9 readers a favor and asked McKellar whether this discovery could lead to a Jurassic Park scenario. McKellar said:
Put simply, no. The specimens that we examined are extremely small and would not be expected to contain any DNA material. To put this into context, the only genetic material that has been recovered from amber is from lumps of mummified insect muscle tissue in much younger Dominican amber that are approximately 17 million years old and well after the age of dinosaurs.
So much for our dreams of dino domination.
What you'll notice in the gallery below is that the researchers are emphasizing two basic pieces of evidence: the similarity in coloration to today's bird feathers, and the similarity in morphology or shape. Some of these feathers strongly resemble those of diving water birds today (and the researchers include one example of a modern diving bird feather so you can compare them). Other structures, however, look nothing like feathers of today. In a news report about McKellar's findings in Science, Sid Perkins writes:
In one instance, the amber holds regularly spaced, hollow filaments, each of which is about 16 micrometers in diameter, about the size of the finest human hair. The filaments apparently have no cell walls, so they're not plant fibers or fungal threads, McKellar says. And they don't have features that look like small scales, as mammal hair does. "We don't absolutely know what they are, but we're pretty sure what they're not," he notes. They could be protofeathers, McKellar says.
Often this kind of structure is called "dinofuzz."
Check out the feathers and the fuzz for yourself. All captions are taken from materials provided by the researchers in their paper, published today in Science.
Dinosaur Feathers Discovered in Canadian Amber
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Plus your name sounds familiar... 
:elmogrin
