The BBC is reporting on research about the evolution of dinosaurs into birds:
Huge meat-eating, land-living dinosaurs evolved into birds by constantly shrinking for over 50 million years, scientists have revealed.
Theropods shrunk 12 times from 163kg (360lb) to 0.8kg (1.8lb), before becoming modern birds.
The researchers found theropods were the only dinosaurs to get continuously smaller.
Their skeletons also changed four times faster than other dinosaurs, helping them to survive. These bird ancestors also evolved new adaptations, including feathers, wishbones and wings, four times faster than other dinosaurs.
The researchers concluded that the evolution of the branch of dinosaurs leading to birds was more innovative than other dinosaur lineages.
See also: Four-Winged Dinosaur is 'Biggest Ever' and Dinosaurs 'Neither Warm nor Cold Blooded'.
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The BBC reports on an answer to what might be the last big question about the biological system that underpinned the lumbering success of the dinosaurs.
Scientists compared the growth rates of hundreds of living and extinct species, using growth rings and bone size to calculate the [metabolic] rates for dinosaurs.
A paper by John Grady, the study's first author and a PhD student at the University of New Mexico, suggests that dinosaurs were mesothermic: neither cold nor warm blooded, but somewhere in between. This research provides fresh evidence to add to the debate.
Professor Roger Seymour, a reptile physiologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, is not convinced.
"It would be disadvantageous to be in the middle," Prof Seymour told BBC News. He remains convinced that only powerful, genuinely endothermic dinosaurs would have wielded sufficient energy to remain dominant for 150 million years.
"You have to realise that this group of dinosaur physiologists, including me, are very hesitant to change our minds. Each one of us has the smoking gun, we think, that proves one thing or another."
The BBC reports on the largest ever four-winged dinosaur (abstract) which has recently been discovered in China.
Changyuraptor yangi was a gliding predator which lived in the Cretaceous period in what is now Liaoning, China.
Its remarkable tail feathers — measuring up to 30cm — are the longest in any non-avian dinosaur.
Measuring 132cm from its snout to the tip of its tail feathers, it is the largest four-winged dinosaur ever discovered — longer than an eagle or an albatross today.
While it is believed that these four-winged dinosaurs were a side-branch and did not evolve into birds as we currently know them, it still offers valuable insight into the origin of flight and evolution of birds.
The BBC reports on some research that suggests Dinosaurs might have survived the asteroid impact if it hadn't been for a combination of other factors.
The study brought together 11 leading dinosaur experts from the UK, US and Canada to assess the latest research on the extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago. There is evidence that some species of dinosaur were dying off shortly before an asteroid hit the Earth. One of the key questions was whether this gradual decline would have led to the extinction of these animals even if the asteroid had not hit.
(Score: 1) by nyder on Sunday August 03 2014, @10:36PM
Do dinosaurs, or at least, theropods taste like chicken?
(Score: 4, Informative) by StupendousMan on Sunday August 03 2014, @10:45PM
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 04 2014, @04:00PM
The real question is, what is the "undo" key to unlock 360 pound chickens?
I kind of like the idea of a whole broasted chicken requiring a forklift to take home.
I'm not even interested in portion sizes because of pink slime / mcnuggets mean you can already create a multi-hundred pound slab of mystery meat. I'm more interested in the rural lifestyle implications of 360 pound chickens.
See, a 75 pound dog gets into the couple pound chickens and at least one chicken gets killed and eaten. But a 75 pound neighbor hound gets into the 360 pound chickens and I think the dog gets eaten. Its something to think about.
I am a little confused about the whole mass flow diagram thing, where chickens seem to spend a lot of time eating, so one thats more than ten times as big needs to eat things ten times bigger or ten times as fast or ten times as often. I know all this megafauna stuff about 3 yard long centipedes and the like and I guess if ancient 360 pound chickens ate ancient 10 foot long centipedes then it would seem to work out. Other than the whole, "now we gotta breed 10 foot long centipedes to feed to the chickens" and even in Florida they don't have stuff like that.