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Fossils & Paleontology

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tencats
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Fossils & Paleontology

#1

Post by tencats »

Paleontologists Find Remains of Oviraptorid Dinosaur and Embryo-Bearing Egg Clutch
Mar 10, 2021
Dinosaurs preserved on their nests are rare, and so are fossil embryos,” said Dr. Shundong Bi, a paleontologist in the Centre for Vertebrate Evolutionary Biology at the Yunnan University’s Institute of Palaeontology and the Department of Biology at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

“This is the first time a non-avian dinosaur has been found, sitting on a nest of eggs that preserve embryos, in a single spectacular specimen.”

The 70-million-year-old fossil was recovered from the Upper Cretaceous Nanxiong Formation near the Ganzhou railway station of Ganzhou city, Jiangxi Province, China.

The specimen is a partial skeleton of a medium-sized oviraptorid theropod preserved atop an undisturbed clutch of at least 24 eggs, some of which are broken, exposing embryonic bones.
image_9434_2-Oviraptorid-Nest.jpg
image_9434_2-Oviraptorid-Nest.jpg (84.62 KiB) Viewed 8732 times
See more at http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/ov ... 09434.html
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#2

Post by MsDaisy »

Wow! That's pretty cool :thumbsup:
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#3

Post by AndyinPA »

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... -australia
A new species of dinosaur discovered in south-west Queensland has been officially recognised as the largest ever found in Australia and among the biggest in the world.

The Australotitan cooperensis, a plant-eating dinosaur of the family known as titanosaurs, likely lived between 92m and 96m years ago, during the Cretaceous period.

It was between 25m and 30m long, stood between 5m and 6.5m from the ground to its hip and had a very long neck and tail, making it similar in appearance to well-known dinosaurs such as Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus.

Nicknamed Cooper, the Australian dinosaur was first uncovered near Cooper Creek in the Eromanga Basin in 2007, but has only now been described scientifically by Queensland Museum and Eromanga Natural History Museum paleontologists.
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#4

Post by Uninformed »

“Bdelloid rotifer survives 24,000 years frozen in Siberia”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57386706

“A microscopic multi-celled organism has returned to life after being frozen for 24,000 years in Siberia, according to new research.”
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#5

Post by jez »

Uninformed wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 7:28 pm “Bdelloid rotifer survives 24,000 years frozen in Siberia”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57386706

“A microscopic multi-celled organism has returned to life after being frozen for 24,000 years in Siberia, according to new research.”
This is how the invasion starts. Hasn't anyone seen "The Thing"??
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#6

Post by Uninformed »

“Scientists hail stunning 'Dragon Man' discovery”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57432104

“Chinese researchers have unveiled an ancient skull that could belong to a completely new species of human.
The team has claimed it is our closest evolutionary relative among known species of ancient human, such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus.
Nicknamed "Dragon Man", the specimen represents a human group that lived in East Asia at least 146,000 years ago.
It was found at Harbin, north-east China, in 1933, but only came to the attention of scientists more recently.
An analysis of the skull has been published in the journal The Innovation.”
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#7

Post by Liz »

Another "Homo" from about the same time frame was found in Israel.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have identified a new type of early human at the Nesher Ramla site, dated to 140,000 to 120,000 years ago. According to the researchers, the morphology of the Nesher Ramla humans shares features with both Neanderthals (especially the teeth and jaws) and archaic Homo (specifically the skull). At the same time, this type of Homo is very unlike modern humans -- displaying a completely different skull structure, no chin, and very large teeth. Following the study's findings, researchers believe that the Nesher Ramla Homo type is the 'source' population from which most humans of the Middle Pleistocene developed. In addition, they suggest that this group is the so-called 'missing' population that mated with Homo sapiens who arrived in the region around 200,000 years ago -- about whom we know from a recent study on fossils found in the Misliya cave.
Timeline: The Nesher Ramla Homo type was an ancestor of both the Neanderthals in Europe and the archaic Homo populations of Asia.
Prof. Hershkovitz adds that the discovery of the Nesher Ramla Homo type challenges the prevailing hypothesis that the Neanderthals originated in Europe. "Before these new findings," he says, "most researchers believed the Neanderthals to be a 'European story', in which small groups of Neanderthals were forced to migrate southwards to escape the spreading glaciers, with some arriving in the Land of Israel about 70,000 years ago. The Nesher Ramla fossils make us question this theory, suggesting that the ancestors of European Neanderthals lived in the Levant as early as 400,000 years ago, repeatedly migrating westward to Europe and eastward to Asia. In fact, our findings imply that the famous Neanderthals of Western Europe are only the remnants of a much larger population that lived here in the Levant -- and not the other way around."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 141540.htm


more about Homo longi or 'Dragon Man.'
The skull was originally found in 1933 by Chinese laborers building a bridge in Harbin, a northern Chinese city, during the Japanese occupation, researchers said. To prevent the skull from falling into Japanese hands, it was wrapped and hidden in an abandoned well. It was only rediscovered in 2018 when the old man who originally hid it told his grandson, shortly before his death.
Their findings suggest that the Homo longi lineage may be our closest relatives -- and may reshape our understanding of human evolution.

Using a series of geochemical analyses, Ji, Ni, and their team dated the Harbin fossil to at least 146,000 years, placing it in the Middle Pleistocene, a dynamic era of human species migration. They hypothesize that H. longi and H. sapiens could have encountered each other during this era.

"We see multiple evolutionary lineages of Homo species and populations co-existing in Asia, Africa, and Europe during that time. So, if Homo sapiens indeed got to East Asia that early, they could have a chance to interact with H. longi, and since we don't know when the Harbin group disappeared, there could have been later encounters as well," says author Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Nature History Museum in London.
Looking farther back in time, the researchers also find that Homo longi is one of our closest hominin relatives, even more closely related to us than Neanderthals. "It is widely believed that the Neanderthal belongs to an extinct lineage that is the closest relative of our own species. However, our discovery suggests that the new lineage we identified that includes Homo longi is the actual sister group of H. sapiens," says Ni.

Their reconstruction of the human tree of life also suggests that the common ancestor we share with Neanderthals existed even further back in time. "The divergence time between H. sapiens and the Neanderthals may be even deeper in evolutionary history than generally believed, over one million years," says Ni. If true, we likely diverged from Neanderthals roughly 400,000 years earlier than scientists had thought.

The researchers say that findings gathered from the Harbin cranium have the potential to rewrite major elements of human evolution. Their analysis into the life history of Homo longi suggest they were strong, robust humans whose potential interactions with Homo sapiens may have shaped our history in turn. "Altogether, the Harbin cranium provides more evidence for us to understand Homo diversity and evolutionary relationships among these diverse Homo species and populations," says Ni. "We found our long-lost sister lineage."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 120419.htm

.... and then, like all the rest, we killed them.
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#8

Post by much ado »

Liz wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:05 pm .... and then, like all the rest, we killed them.
How do you know that?
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#9

Post by Suranis »

The Present "Homo Sapiens" emerged in Africa about 100000 years ago. Then very quickly we spread out around the world. There were very different skull shapes than ours found in various parts of the world, then around 100000 years ago they all vanished and the skulls found after that were our shape of skull.

The only rational explanation is that we killed them all. The theory is that while people like Neanderthal man were more than a match for us physically, our advantage was the ability to tell stories to one another. We could try one strategy, then when that didn't work we could tell other members of our species that it didn't work and we could try something else. The other species of Men were locked into the same strategies of fighting and did not have the ability to communicate like we could.

Its not like poor predecessors had tried to expand into Europe before that 100000 year. Neanderthal man had kicked them out. But 100000 years ago Neanderthal man had no chance at all.
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#10

Post by Foggy »

Yeah, I know there is a reason why homo sapiens is the only remaining human group, and even though there's no historical record, it pretty clearly had to be because of competition for scarce resources, which we won and the Neanderthals and other groups lost. It couldn't be more clear that we are still the most dangerous animals, even if many of us today are not physically capable of competing in a natural environment.

A lot of science fiction is based on a more advanced species from outer space discovering Earth and trying to take over the planet. I think we'll kill all of them, too also.

:boxing:
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#11

Post by Uninformed »

I have long thought that “mankind” (Homo whatever) is much older than the discoverable fossil record will ever demonstrate. We also have a pretty near zero understanding (or evidence) of what pathogens may have been fatal to given sub/species, or natural events that may have decimated areas of the planet. It’s fascinating to watch as each new discovery/research brings a reevaluation of our history.
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#12

Post by Suranis »

I should mention that what I wrote is not 100% agreed upon. There's a very large section of scientists that prefer to believe we just out bred everyone else and reproduced with them till they gave birth to more happy Homo Sapiens.

While the thought that we basically took over the world using Captain Kirk tactics is comforting, and somehow our women were the most gorgeous like they pretended on later series of Star trek, I don't buy it.
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#13

Post by Foggy »

Yeah, me neither. :nope:
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#14

Post by Liz »

much ado wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:39 pm
Liz wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:05 pm .... and then, like all the rest, we killed them.
How do you know that?
Math... 8 billion us to zero any of them.
but seriously, Our warlike nature drove our technological advances. Better ways to kill... or as some prefer, Out Compete.
it's how we are and what we do. ... oh, and have sex with them.. there still are bits and pieces of them in us.
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#15

Post by Lani »

Suranis wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 8:08 am I should mention that what I wrote is not 100% agreed upon. There's a very large section of scientists that prefer to believe we just out bred everyone else and reproduced with them till they gave birth to more happy Homo Sapiens.

While the thought that we basically took over the world using Captain Kirk tactics is comforting, and somehow our women were the most gorgeous like they pretended on later series of Star trek, I don't buy it.
They never really disappeared. You can get a DNA test to see if you are part Neanderthal.

BTW: "Now, researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany have found that a group of genes that reduces the risk of a person becoming seriously ill with COVID-19 by around 20% is inherited from Neanderthals."
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases ... 021621.php
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#16

Post by MsDaisy »

Lani wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 8:21 am
Suranis wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 8:08 am I should mention that what I wrote is not 100% agreed upon. There's a very large section of scientists that prefer to believe we just out bred everyone else and reproduced with them till they gave birth to more happy Homo Sapiens.

While the thought that we basically took over the world using Captain Kirk tactics is comforting, and somehow our women were the most gorgeous like they pretended on later series of Star trek, I don't buy it.
They never really disappeared. You can get a DNA test to see if you are part Neanderthal.

BTW: "Now, researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany have found that a group of genes that reduces the risk of a person becoming seriously ill with COVID-19 by around 20% is inherited from Neanderthals."
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases ... 021621.php
According to "23 and Me" I have 236 variants in my DNA that trace back to Neanderthals.

1 variant associated with experiencing more itchy mosquito bites.

2 variants associated with having a worse sense of direction.

It's true that I do have a pretty bad sense of direction. Imagine that!


Edited to add... I'm also left-handed and dyslexic. :lol:
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#17

Post by Lani »

I'm finally going to get a 23 & me test. I suspect it's basically Nordic - Ireland & Scotland. However, on the Eastern Shore, there was a lot of diversity. Indentured servants fled there. They were from around the world.
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#18

Post by Liz »

Lani wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 10:24 am I'm finally going to get a 23 & me test. I suspect it's basically Nordic - Ireland & Scotland. However, on the Eastern Shore, there was a lot of diversity. Indentured servants fled there. They were from around the world.
We've had 2 of the Ancestry teats on the desk for a year because "The only major DNA testing company that currently offers a Neanderthal percentage in results is 23andMe."

Neanderthals.
..Until recently the thinking was, All modern populations except for Sub-Saharan Africans have, on average, 1.5% Neanderthal DNA.
Now it's "Africans, long thought to have no Neanderthal DNA, were recently found to have 0.3 percent Neanderthal
East Asians have the most Neanderthal DNA followed by those of European ancestry.
Altogether about 20-25% of Neanderthal DNA still survives in the various combinations we have in each of our 1.5 - 2%.
The following notion is 100% me. Homo's were the most greedy, aggressive and warlike. We get our empathy gene from various Neandertal sequence's. .... Republicans didn't get them.

We've got Denisovan DNA too.
The percentage of Denisovan DNA is highest in the Melanesian population (4 to 6 percent), lower in other Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander populations, and very low or undetectable elsewhere in the world.
The scientists hypothesize that large copy-number variants appearing first in Neanderthal or Denisovan ancestors may have helped human populations adapt to their local environments as they spread out across the planet. Neanderthal and Denisova are thought to have colonized parts of the world long before modern-day humans arrived, so it follows that Neanderthals and Denisovans successfully adapted genetically to these environments before we did. Interbreeding with them provided access to a reservoir of beneficial variants, including newly minted genes that were introduced back into us.

“We believe that copy-number variants represent an untapped gold mine of such adaptive mutations,” the authors said, “and that the story has repeated itself multiple times in other human populations whose ancestors made contact with archaic species.”
https://newsroom.uw.edu/news/did-archai ... ians-adapt
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#19

Post by AndyinPA »

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... own-animal
Intricate patterns of tubular structures discovered in giant ancient reefs may be the remnants of prehistoric horny sponges and the oldest known fossils of animal life on Earth.

Researchers found the unusual features in vast reefs that were built by bacteria 890m years ago and then pushed up by geological processes to form part of the Mackenzie Mountains in north-western Canada.

Examined under a microscope, a small number of rock samples revealed tubules about half the width of a human hair that branch and reconnect to form 3D structures that are strikingly similar to those seen in fossils of bath sponges.

“Initially, when you look at these features they look like a bunch of wiggles, but when you try to follow each of the strands, you realise that even in thin sections they form complicated 3D meshworks,” said Prof Elizabeth Turner, at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario.
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#20

Post by roadscholar »

Some paleontologists have concluded from various evidence that the Neanderthals seem to have stuck to their traditional habits more, while Sapiens seem to have been more ready to discard non-working habits as conditions changed.

One piece of the puzzle, IIRC, was that Neanderthal remains and domiciles showed evidence of malnutrition as a result of game scarcity, even while living near rivers teeming with fish.
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#21

Post by Foggy »

Give a Neanderthal a fish ... :batting:
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#22

Post by johnpcapitalist »

roadscholar wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 3:28 pm Some paleontologists have concluded from various evidence that the Neanderthals seem to have stuck to their traditional habits more, while Sapiens seem to have been more ready to discard non-working habits as conditions changed.

One piece of the puzzle, IIRC, was that Neanderthal remains and domiciles showed evidence of malnutrition as a result of game scarcity, even while living near rivers teeming with fish.
Why did I immediately think of Sporky as I read this? He's in the pathetic mess he's in because of his inflexibility. There are a lot of jobs out there, paying more than ever before, and Sporky is turning his back on all of them.
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#23

Post by Foggy »

I believe he is pretty much unemployable. You can't hold a job if'n you can't behave like a grownup.

You can't be a pizza delivery person if you constantly start arguments with the customers when they open the door. You can't do any kind of job that's about customer service, if you just want to fuck with people. That's not even mentioning his appearance, but when was the last time you saw a cashier or other customer-facing employee who was missing half his front teeth?

He can't do a job that involves physical labor. He hasn't done anything to stay in shape, and he's 60 or maybe 61 by now. He has no education beyond maybe a couple of classes in a community college, no degree awarded. I'd like to see the "Recent Experience" section of his résumé!

I've done a LOT of different jobs over the years. Before I went to law school, I was a taxi driver, a school bus driver, a factory worker, an assistant bookkeeper,, a house painter, a demolition worker (removing whatever remained after a house burned down), a street vendor, a hardware warehouse worker, a furniture upholstery shop worker, a carpetlayer, and several more. I can't think of even one job I've ever done that Sporky could do successfully and hold down the job.

Besides, if you asked him, he'd tell you he already has a job - he's an Important Voice on the Internet, and he's not looking for other work.
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#24

Post by Volkonski »

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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Re: Fossils & Paleontology

#25

Post by MsDaisy »

Volkonski wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 4:08 pm
Wow! Very cool!
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