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God Made Crocs 100 Million Years Ago !!!
Prehistoric Jaws: Meet the family of crocs that ate dinosaurs 100million years ago!
By David Derbyshire
1:59 AM on 20th November 2009
A family of five terrifying prehistoric crocodiles - including one with teeth like the tusks of a wild boar - have been discovered by fossil hunters.
The predators roamed the swamps, lakes and rivers of Africa 100million years ago hunting small dinosaurs and seeking out fish and grubs.
Unlike their modern cousins, the ancient crocodilians were as agile on land as they were in the water.
Explorer Paul Sereno enveloped by the jaws of an eight ton SuperCroc. He holds the fossil head of DogCroc who along with four other newly described reptiles lived in the Sahara 100 million years ago.
University of Chicago Professor Paul Sereno and McGill University Associate Professor Hans Larsson excavate the fossil skull of a 100-million-year-old croc in Niger.
Their remains were uncovered in the Sahara by one of the world's greatest fossil hunters, Dr Paul Sereno of Chicago University, who in 2001 discovered the ' supercroc' - an eight ton, 40ft monster that lived at the time of the dinosaurs.
The latest haul includes new species with an astonishing array of snouts and teeth. The most ferocious is the 'Boar Croc', a 20ft meat eater with an armoured snout for ramming its prey and three sets of daggershaped fangs for slicing up meat.
Similarly long was the 'Pancake Croc', a squat fish eater with a 3ft-long pancakeflat head which rested motionless for hours, its jaws open, waiting for prey.
The Boar Croc: At 20ft long, this carnivore had an armoured snout with teeth like a boar's.
There were three other snappy little devils, each about three feet long. The 'Rat Croc' was a plant and grub eater whose buckteeth were used to dig for food, while the 'Duck Croc' had a broad, overhanging snout with which it rooted around in shallow water and mudbanks for fish and grubs.
Finally, the 'Dog Croc' ate plants and grubs, had a soft dog-like nose and was probably a good swimmer and fast runner.
Most of the crocodiles were found lying on the surface of a remote, windswept stretch of rock and dunes. The Pancake Croc: Flat-headed beast would lie open-jawed, waiting for prey.
The Duck Croc: Used its bill-like snout to root out fish and grubs on mudbanks.
Palaeontologist Dr Hans Larsson, of McGill University in Montreal, said: 'We were surprised to find so many species from the same time in the same place.
'Each of the crocs apparently had different diets, different behaviours. It appears they had divided up the ecosystem, each species taking advantage of it in its own way.'
The newly discovered creatures are featured in National Geographic magazine and will appear in a documentary.
A flesh model of the head of BoarCroc and RatCroc and the actual fossils discovered in the Sahara.
A flesh model of the head of PancakeCroc and its fossil lower jaw. It was a fish eater with a 3-foot-long, pancake-flat skull.
Modern crocs evolved 80million years ago and survived the global extinction that wiped out dinosaurs 65million years ago
In hot weather, crocs can put their body on standby, conserving energy so well that they survive months without water or food
* A saltwater crocodile - at 23ft, the largest species of croc - can hold its breath under water for more than an hour
* Crocodiles can shed tears. Their eyes have glands which secrete a fluid that can be visible if they are out of water for a long time.
Power of Prayer ???
What should or would be notionally included in a prayer for your beloved President?
And with Mrs Palin's new book and television appearances, what prayer would or should be said for her?
Human Brains are Evolving Downwards !!!
Humans Still Evolving as Our Brains Shrink!
By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
13 November 2009 08:38 am ET
Weighing in at an average of 2.7 pounds (1,200 grams), the human brain packs a whopping 100 billion neurons. Every minute, about three soda-cans worth of blood flow through the brain.
Evolution in humans is commonly thought to have essentially stopped in recent times. But there are plenty of examples that the human race is still evolving, including our brains, and there are even signs that our evolution may be accelerating.
Shrinking brains
Comprehensive scans of the human genome reveal that hundreds of our genes show evidence of changes during the past 10,000 years of human evolution.
"We know the brain has been evolving in human populations quite recently," said paleoanthropologist John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Surprisingly, based on skull measurements, the human brain appears to have been shrinking over the last 5,000 or so years.
"When it comes to recent evolutionary changes, we currently maybe have the least specific details with regard the brain, but we do know from archaeological data that pretty much everywhere we can measure â€" Europe, China, South Africa, Australia â€" that brains have shrunk about 150 cubic centimeters, off a mean of about 1,350. That's roughly 10 percent," Hawks said.
"As to why is it shrinking, perhaps in big societies, as opposed to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, we can rely on other people for more things, can specialize our behavior to a greater extent, and maybe not need our brains as much," he added.
Mutations against malaria
In contrast to our limited but growing knowledge regarding the modern evolution of the human brain, the best example we see of evolution of humans in recent history is linked with malaria, Hawks said. Since the disease often targets humans early in life, there was a strong pressure to evolve defenses from malaria â€" any genetic factor that confers resistance against it would give descendents a chance to have offspring, while those without such protection were more likely to not reproduce.
There are lots of examples of defenses against malaria. Sickle cell anemia is the best known â€"the disorder deforms red blood cells into sickle shapes, which can impair blood flow, thus damaging tissues, this malformation also prevents the malaria parasite from infesting blood cells.
"Although sickle cell is best known in Africa, there is also an India-Pakistan variant of it that seems to have evolved separately," Hawks explained. "Both variants have evolved very recently, in the last three or four thousand years, and in that time have risen to as much as 10 to 15 percent of the populations. That's pretty rapid change."
Food and drink
Lactose tolerance is another recent example of a recent evolutionary change.
Most of the world remains lactose intolerant, unable to digest the complex milk sugar lactose as adults, but the evolution of lactose tolerance perhaps some 7,500 years ago in Europe enabled people there to take advantage of non-human milk, a highly nutritious food source one can sustainably procure instead of slaughtering animals.
Other evolutionary changes linked with diet appear to deal with genes conferring protection against type II diabetes.
"When you develop agricultural diets, you might need adaptations to survive on them, the way the digestive systems are regulated," Hawks said.
Is our evolution accelerating?
There are signs that human evolution may not only be continuing, but that its rate has even accelerated in recent times. Hawks and his colleagues have found evidence of rapid change, with a host of new mutations originating in the last 40,000 years.
So what might explain this apparent acceleration?
"The ecology of humans has been changing," Hawks said. "The biggest changes have to do with agriculture and its consequences â€" dealing with a new subsistence pattern that caused people to rely on foods that were never very important before, a radical shift from hunter-gatherer diets. For instance, agricultural populations tend to have more copies of a gene for salivary amylase, which helps them digest starch."
Colonel Gaddafi !!!
Gaddafi preaches to Rome beauties
By Mark Duff
BBC News, Milan
Party host Colonel Gaddafi extolled the virtues of Islam.
A group of party girls got more than they bargained for when they were recruited to attend a posh do in Rome on Sunday night.
Instead of canapés and cocktails, the 200 young women found themselves being encouraged to become Muslims.
It turned out the host was Libya's leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi, in town for the UN food summit.
He spoke of the wonders of Islam and assured his guests it was not anti-women, as some critics argue.
The selection process had been rigorous; the identity of the host, a mystery.
The girls had to be beautiful, between 18 and 35 - and at least 1.70m tall.
The dress code was strict: plunging necklines and short miniskirts were most definitely out.
Two-hundred women passed muster and were bussed to a plush residential corner of the Italian capital.
Security scanned and shown into an imposing reception room, they were then left waiting, as several complained, without so much as a glass of water.
An hour later, their host's identity was finally revealed.
Col Gaddafi proceeded to preach the benefits of Islam, taking particular pains to assure his guests that it was not misogynistic, and encouraging them to convert.
Two hours later, the women left, looking a touch bemused, 50 euros ($75; £45) better off and clutching a copy of the Koran.
The Link is no Longer Missing !!!
Only the dumb and ignorant will deny evolution. But we still have those fossils on this Forum.
Sad.
Fossil Ida: she's 47m years old â€" and she's our link to animal life.
Another milestone in our evolutionary history was reached yesterday when the exquisitely preserved fossil of a 47-million-year-old primate was unveiled.
Humanity is very egocentric. We are Âfascinated with ourselves. I'm not sure that it is a particularly nice Âcharacteristic, but we are.
When we look around us at the natural world, there is often an ulterior motive. We desperately want to know where we came from. We love to think about us and about our ancestors.
Yesterday was humanity's first chance to come face to face with one such ancestor â€" and a remarkable ancient relative at that. Ida is one of the most immaculately preserved primate fossils ever found and, at 47m years old, she comes from a key moment in our evolutionary history.
This beautiful little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals: with cows and sheep, and elephants and anteaters. According to one of the scientists who has studied her, she is a "Rosetta stone" for Âunderstanding our early evolution.
One reason Ida is so special is her exquisite preservation, and that is because the Messel pit, near Darmstadt in Germany, is a very exceptional place. Forty-seven million years ago it was a volcanic lake surrounded by a steamy sub-tropical forest. Because of the unique conditions there, Messel â€" which is now designated a Unesco world heritage site â€" has yielded countless fabulous fossils including bats, pygmy horses, crocodiles and even insects with the colours on their wings still visible.
People who study fossils are nearly always studying the hard parts: the shells and the bones. They have to deduce from the shape of each bone what the muscles were like. From that they can deduce more about how the animal held itself and moved. If they are lucky they can maybe make suggestions about what the internal organs were like.
With this fossil you don't have to make suggestions. Almost uniquely, we not only have the bones, but we also have the fur and the flesh. So it is not a question of deduction, it is not a question of imagination or suggestions, it is fact.
Right before our eyes is exquisite detail of what the little primate looked like. There is the stomach, and inside is her last meal â€" a final vegetarian snack. There are very few fossils for which you can say that. After the demise of the dinosaurs around 65m years ago, suddenly the domination of the Earth was up for grabs. What succeeded them, of course, were the mammals, creatures like ourselves with warm bodies and with hair. But which one of those was going to lead to us?
The more you look at Ida the more you can picture, as it were, the primate in embryo. She represents the seed from which the diversity of monkeys, apes and ultimately every person on the planet came.
She lived long before our primate line had split into the species we know today â€" the spider monkeys, baboons and gorillas to name but a few. And crucially, she lived at around the time that a separate primate line, the one containing the lemurs and less well-known groups such as the lorises and bush babies, split off from the rest. She is a glimpse into the melting pot of early primate evolution.
Is Ida the missing link? Well, yes and no. Lines of ancestry are extremely difficult to work out from a series of fossils and there are still huge gaps in our understanding of the primate evolutionary story. But the physical proof of evolution has always demanded that there should be links or transitional forms. The famous Archaeopteryx â€" the first specimen of which resides in the Natural History Museum in London â€" for example, is one such transitional fossil between the reptiles and birds. Those who doubt that very simple generalised mammals gave rise to the primates could always ask, "show us the link". Well that link is no longer missing.
Jørn Hurum, the palaeontologist who acquired the fossil for science and assembled a world-class team to study it, deserves great credit. He had the insight and the instinct to see this thing and to know in his heart immediately that this was going to be of profound importance. It was certainly an act of scholarship and of scientific insight.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/19/ida-fossil-attenborough-evolution-darwin
Bones & Feathers !!!
It is perfectly obvious that feathers require flesh to be attached to bone fossils of birds. The evidence of both have been discovered.
'The realization that dinosaurs are closely related to birds raised the obvious possibility of feathered dinosaurs. Fossils of Archaeopteryx include well-preserved feathers, but it was not until the early 1990s that clearly nonavian dinosaur fossils were discovered with preserved feathers. Today there are more than twenty genera of dinosaurs with fossil feathers, nearly all of which are theropods.
Most are from the Yixian formation in China. The fossil feathers of one specimen, Shuvuuia deserti, have even tested positive for beta-keratin, the main protein in bird feathers, in immunological tests. . . . . . . '
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs
Birds, more than any other group of animals, are a celebration of color. They have evolved to every extreme of the spectrum, from the hot pink of flamingos to the shimmering blue of a peacock's neck. Yet, for decades, paleontologists who study extinct birds have had to use their imaginations to see the colors in the fossils. Several feather fossils have been unearthed over the years, but they have always been assumed to be colorless vestiges.
Now a team of scientists has discovered color-producing molecules that have survived for 47 million years in the fossil of a feather. By analyzing those molecules, the researchers have shown that they would have given a bird the kind of dark, iridescent sheen found on starlings and other living birds. . . . . . '
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/science/01feath.html
The baby bird fossil was 150 million years old. This period in time is when birds evolved from reptiles. Another professor pointed out to me other inclusions that were in the stone like plant matter, twigs, and other foreign objects not identifiable to him. A professor stated that there was proof that this rock was found on the top of the ground like I said due to the impact marks etched into the rock as the rain hit the front of the stone for hundreds of years while it laid on top of the ground. The marks were small circular pockets about the size of a pencil eraser grouped together. It was also mentioned that there was once other bones near the chest of the bird that had fallen out over time but the imprint of the bones are still visible. They could not identify the species of bird, as there is nothing on record, to compare it to.
I was asked by one of the professors if I wouldn't mind waiting for one more professor who was still in class to come see the stone. He stated that this professor was part of their group and they wanted his opinion of the stone.
As he approached, I handed him, the stone. He looked at it for a moment and stated that this stone was an artifact that had been carved by primitive man into a tool used to scrape the flesh away from the hide of game killed for food. This mans background is Archeology. A silence fell on the people gathered. They listened to information being given about this rare find. . . . . . '
Modern whales have hip bones in their flesh that
they do not use because they do not walk. Paleontologists have found a fossil whale called Pakicetus that has more developed rear legs. Older whales should look more like their ancestors if evolution is correct. Without svolution, we could not understand why whales have hip bones. I should also emphasize that homologous structures
do not have to be used for the same purpose. Whale flippers and human hands are homologous, but are used in very different ways. Another interesting fossil is Archaeopteryx. This was a dinosaur that had feathered wings, like birds. Bird and dinosaurs have a common ancestry. This fossil has teeth, although no bird has teeth. It has the skeleton of a dinosaur, but the
feathers of a bird. It shows that there was a time when the difference between birds and dinosaurs was not obvious. Birds are the only remaining species from the dinosaur line. Homology is a complicated concept. It means that two structures are similar because they are related genetically. If two structures are similar but not related then they are only analogous. The wings of birds and insects are analogous. They both are used to fly, but in different ways. They are not related animals. Many differences between their structures make this apparent to the keen observer. But the wing of a bat and the wing of a bird are homologous. They both contain the same bones. Both have an upper arm bone (humerus), both have a radius and ulna (lower arm bones), and both have wrist bones and metacarpals and digits. They were both derived from the same genetic plan. Look up homology in a biology text for
more examples. There is a growing mountain of evidence that supports evolution. It will never be proven true because we can not know for sure. But by using the scientific method, we can make a good guess, based on careful observations of the earth as it exists today. A long answer to a short question. Because evolution is a complicated theory. Keep asking questions. And do not take anybody's word for it, go out and see for yourself!
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/newton/askasci/1993/biology/bio039.htm
Does a Biblical Year Correspond to Ours ???
Morning Deacon -
I see from Genesis that:
'"When Adam was 130 years old, his son Seth was born."
Me: You believe that?
Then in verse 6 we pick up again saying, "When seth was 105 years old, his son Enosh was born."
This will keep going on through the genealogy until reaching Noah. Assuming a literal 7 day creation as the Bible describes for us in Genesis chapter 1 verses 3;8;13;19;23; and 31 as well as chapter 2 verse 2 translated as evening and morning were a day in the King James Version, we can safely say those first 130 years between Adam and his son Seth were where it all begins. So let's get started adding through Genesis 5:1-32.
Adam to Seth 130 years
Seth to Enosh 105 years
Enosh to Kenan 90 yeas
Kenan to Mahalalel 70 years
Mahalalel to Jared 65 years
Jared to Enoch 162 years
Enoch to Methuselah 65 years
Methuselah to Lamech 187 years
Lamech to Noah 182 years
This equals 1056 years from creation to Noah
The Bible says in Genesis chapter 7 verse 6, Noah was 600 years Old when the flood came. So if we add 600 to 1056 years, we come up the the date 1656 years after creation. Now let's continue with the genealogies in Genesis 5:32 where we find that Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. From here we bounce forward to Genesis 11:10-16 and pick up the lineage of Shem.
From Adam to the Flood 1656 years
Shem to Arphaxad 2 years after the flood the Bible says
Arphaxad to Shelah 35 years
Shelah to Eber 30 years
Eber to Peleg 34 years
This number equals 1757 years after creation
The tower of Babel was built somewhere between 1757 to 1996 years after creation.
Were these numbers used by you Deacon, in your reckoning of the age of the earth - to only about ten thousand years?
Do you accept that the building of the Tower of Babel implies a singularly simplistic and innaccurate assumption of the location of Heaven - within reaching distance of the earth?
In the Beginning !!!
Deaky -
Which came first -
Cat or dog?
Do you think the animals were created in alephabetical order?
(Hebrew alphabet, of course - even though God's British.)
Betting !!!
Hi Deaky -
Wouldn't like you to represent me in court.
That's dumb to bet I can't answer.
Of course I can answer - by saying I don't know which came first (in humans?), the blood or the heart.
But Wik suggests the following:
'As for the heart/blood question, I think the simplest answer is "the blood", but only in a vague way because blood has changed too. Most organisms need a way to move things around â€" nutrients, waste, etc. In especially small organisms, this obviously doesn't need to be very sophisticated. Diffusion, where concentrations of a substance tend to find a state of equilibrium within their boundary, could account for a very small organism getting nutrients to all it's parts, or allowing waste out. But even very simple organisms also have muscle-like functions that serve to move the 'carrier substance' (that only vaguely resembles blood) around. As these organisms grow in size, only then does a specialized heart begin to develop, which may not have resembled our 4-chambered heart for thousands of iterations. There has also been some real study of this progression. In any case, our vantage point is that our body seems to work exactly right, but this isn't insightful. It only means that our heart is the one that works for us, right now, where we are. If it didn't work for us right now, it would have evolved differently, to fit those requirements. And the ones that didn't would die out or find a different role to fit into some other survival spot.
http://www.reasonabledissent.com/heart-blood/
PS Which came first - hot or cold, wet or dry, thick or thin, tall or short, wide or long?
Walk on Water !!!
Christian -
Bet you don't even bother to try!
Walk on Water !!!
Christian -
If you really want to follow Jesus, go out in a boat and try walking on the water of one of the Great Lakes.
Faith should allow you to succeed.
If you fall in, draw the obvious conclusion.
(PS: Bet you fall in!)
Ain't Necessarily So !!
Abe -
Deacon can't allow for that!!
He can only accept what's in the 'Bible'.
Knockers !!!
Deacon, in slightly benevolent mode, conjectures by inference that he's wiser than Betrand Russell.
Pyrrho, he suggests, talked nonsense.
Well, Christians are even more nonsensical.
Christians believe that water that is blessed becomes holy.
In fact there is no such thing as Holy Water.
Pyrrho !!!
Bertrand Russell once wrote:
' . . . . A story is told of Pyrrho, the founder of Pyrrhonism (which was the old name for scepticism). He maintained that we never know enough to be sure that one course of action is wiser than another. In his youth, when he was taking his constitutional one afternoon, he saw his teacher in philosophy (from whom he had imbibed his principles) with his head stuck in a ditch, unable to get out. After contemplating him for some time, he walked on, maintaining that there was not sufficient ground for thinking he would do any good by pulling the man out. Others, less sceptical, effected a rescue, and blamed Pyrrho for his heartlessness. But his teacher, true to his principles, praised him for his consistency.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell4.htm
Knockers !!!
P n g -
Sceptisism is not a philosophy, old bean.
But did Paul see a vision with clothes on, which made him go blind?
Was Bernadette adorned at Lourdes, was Our Lady of Knock suitably clad, or The Virgin Mary In Medjugorje, the Virgin Mary in Marpingen, and
'Since 1981, in a small village in Bosnia-Hercegovina named Medjugorje, the Blessed Virgin Mary has been reportedly appearing and giving messages to the world. She tells us that God has sent Her to our world and, these years she is spending with us are a time of Grace granted by God. In Her own words She tells us, "I have come to tell the world that God exists. He is the fullness of life, and to enjoy this fullness and peace, you must return to God".
(http://www.medjugorje.org/overview.htm)
No wonder some flock to Lourdes.
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