Dinosaur DNA? New Patent Covers Degraded DNA recovery
The US Patent Office issued Patent # 6,872,552, "A Method of Reconstituting Nucleic Acid Molecules" today to Burt D. Ensley, Ph.D, Chairman of MatrixDesign, and CEO of DermaPlus, Inc. The patent covers methods for recovering and reconstituting genes from "degraded" DNA samples, and could allow scientists to reassemble everything from prehistoric, extinct animals to unsolved crime scenes. "...Revueltosaurus skeleton unearthed at Petrified Forest upsets dinosaur tale
The fossilized skeleton of a small crocodile relative excavated last year at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona throws a wrench into theories of how and where the dinosaurs arose more than 210 million years ago at the end of the Triassic Period. The animal, one of many creatures from the Late Triassic known only from their teeth, was thought to be an ancestor of the plant-eating or...Study: Predatory dinosaurs had bird-like pulmonary system
What could the fierce dinosaur T. rex and a modern songbird such as the sparrow possibly have in common? Their pulmonary systems may have been more similar than scientists previously thought, according to new research from Ohio University and Harvard University. Though some scientists have proposed that predatory dinosaurs had lungs similar to crocodiles and other reptiles, a new study pub...Skull study sheds light on dinosaur diversity
With their long necks and tails, sauropod dinosaurs---famous as the Sinclair gasoline logo and Fred Flintstone's gravel pit tractor---are easy to recognize, in part because they all seem to look alike. The largest animals known to have walked the earth, sauropods were common in North America during the middle of the dinosaur era but were thought to have been pushed to extinction by more s...Wright bros. upstaged! Dinos invented biplanes
The evolution of airplanes from the Wright Brothers' first biplanes to monoplanes was an inadvertent replay of the much earlier evolution of dinosaur flight, say two dino flight experts. According to paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee and retired aeronautical engineer R.J. Templin, a small early Chinese dinosaur called Microraptor gui used a two-level, biplane wing configuration to fly from...Dinos may Have Died in Agonizing Death Throes of Asphyxiation
The peculiar pose of many fossilized dinosaurs, with wide-open mouth, head thrown back and recurved tail, likely resulted from the agonized death throes typical of brain damage and asphyxiation, according to two American palaeontologists. A classic example of the posture, which has puzzled palaeontologists for ages, is the 150 million-year-old Archaeopteryx, the first-known example...