In an interesting coincidence, these articles are in the Washington Post today:“Birdsong and human speech turn out to be controlled by the same genes” – http://wpo.st/gCrx“We finally know when birds lost their teeth” – http://wpo.st/rCrx
The diagram in the second article shows how closely related various birds are to each other since evolving from a common ancestor.
The article is based on an article in Science magazine:http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6215/1308
exoticdoc2 & plus4: How did reptiles get into this? Despite 19th century nomenclature, -saurus isn’t an accurate description. They just aren’t reptiles (four, not three chambered heart; haversen canals in the bones like birds and mammals, etc.) so of course birds didn’t evolve from reptiles, so stop trying to obscure the issue with irrelevancies.
@exoticdoc2.“Myth. Anyone who really knows about reptiles versus avian anatomy and physiology and is honest with themselves knows you are not going to turn a lizard into a bird.”.Others have pointed out that dinosaurs weren’t lizards, not that it would matter..Changing an existing animal into something else wouldn’t likely happen, so that statement is true.. Changing the sequence of the genetic code to that of some other critter isn’t inherently impossible, though, sinc DNA is just aa sequence of four bases: A (adenosine), T (thymidine), C (cytidine), and G (guanosine) .Rearrange them right and you can turn a human cell — any cell — into a chicken or a T-Rex or an oak tree or an amoebum or a mushroom or a whale or grass or kudzu or a spider.And you could turn any cell of any of them into any other lifeform. (Not that you would want to, just that you could)
I don’t know that chickens evolved from dinosaurs. Some pretty smart folks seem to think so. They must have been studying different breeds of chickens than the 70 or so chickens my wife kept until a couple of years ago. I know for a scientific fact that all of her chickens actually evolved, and not very far, from clams.
ShadowBeast: A better hypothesis than pcolli’s, but so far, we have no specific evidence that dinosaurs evolved from reptiles, despite superficial resemblance..JP Steve: Whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, walruses, manatees, iguanas, penguins, etc. have backbones and are found in the ocean; are they all fish?
The Life I Draw Upon almost 10 years ago
And we feed them to Opal.
Templo S.U.D. almost 10 years ago
Too bad Nelson’s too young to watch “Jurassic Park.”
jdunham almost 10 years ago
T-Rex wasn’t a lizard. T-Rex was a theropod, as is a chicken. Lizards are squamates, and not closely related to theropods.
LuvThemPluggers almost 10 years ago
See? I knew a lot of scientific data went into this strip!
S Prada almost 10 years ago
In an interesting coincidence, these articles are in the Washington Post today:“Birdsong and human speech turn out to be controlled by the same genes” – http://wpo.st/gCrx“We finally know when birds lost their teeth” – http://wpo.st/rCrx
The diagram in the second article shows how closely related various birds are to each other since evolving from a common ancestor.
The article is based on an article in Science magazine:http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6215/1308
J Short almost 10 years ago
mroy1160 Premium Member almost 10 years ago
That is the coolest “Chick-Rex-en” I have ever seen!!!! Well done!!
She Mc almost 10 years ago
Can’t we just laugh? It IS a comic strip after all!!!
hippogriff almost 10 years ago
exoticdoc2 & plus4: How did reptiles get into this? Despite 19th century nomenclature, -saurus isn’t an accurate description. They just aren’t reptiles (four, not three chambered heart; haversen canals in the bones like birds and mammals, etc.) so of course birds didn’t evolve from reptiles, so stop trying to obscure the issue with irrelevancies.
dzw3030 almost 10 years ago
@ j. short, WOW! The best case yet to eat more beef! ;-)
David Huie Green AmericaIsGreatItHasUs almost 10 years ago
@exoticdoc2.“Myth. Anyone who really knows about reptiles versus avian anatomy and physiology and is honest with themselves knows you are not going to turn a lizard into a bird.”.Others have pointed out that dinosaurs weren’t lizards, not that it would matter..Changing an existing animal into something else wouldn’t likely happen, so that statement is true.. Changing the sequence of the genetic code to that of some other critter isn’t inherently impossible, though, sinc DNA is just aa sequence of four bases: A (adenosine), T (thymidine), C (cytidine), and G (guanosine) .Rearrange them right and you can turn a human cell — any cell — into a chicken or a T-Rex or an oak tree or an amoebum or a mushroom or a whale or grass or kudzu or a spider.And you could turn any cell of any of them into any other lifeform. (Not that you would want to, just that you could)
ShadowBeast Premium Member almost 10 years ago
The next Jurassic Park film looks like it has alot of promise.Hopefully it won’t stink like the third film.
ThumperMcDuff almost 10 years ago
I don’t know that chickens evolved from dinosaurs. Some pretty smart folks seem to think so. They must have been studying different breeds of chickens than the 70 or so chickens my wife kept until a couple of years ago. I know for a scientific fact that all of her chickens actually evolved, and not very far, from clams.
PunyParson almost 10 years ago
Grandpa must be in a fowl mood today.
naturally_easy almost 10 years ago
Wow! Brian, you sure let the wind out of the windbags on this one! :)
hippogriff almost 10 years ago
ShadowBeast: A better hypothesis than pcolli’s, but so far, we have no specific evidence that dinosaurs evolved from reptiles, despite superficial resemblance..JP Steve: Whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, walruses, manatees, iguanas, penguins, etc. have backbones and are found in the ocean; are they all fish?