Researchers have demonstrated common genetic and evolutionary ties between the scales, feathers, and hair of reptiles, birds, and mammals (which comprise the amniotes):
The potential evolutionary link between hairs in mammals, feathers in birds and scales in reptiles has been debated for decades. Today, researchers of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland, demonstrate that all these skin appendages are homologous: they share a common ancestry. On the basis of new analyses of embryonic development, the Swiss biologists evidenced molecular and micro-anatomical signatures that are identical between hairs, feathers and scales at their early developmental stages. These new observations, published today in Science Advances, indicate that the three structures evolved from their common reptilian ancestor.
Further on it is noted:
[Continues...]
In 2015, a team from Yale University (USA) published an article showing that scales, hairs and feathers share molecular signatures during their development. These results fueled an old debate between two schools. One defends that these molecular signatures suggest a common evolutionary origin of skin appendages, whereas the other proposes that the same genes are re-used for developing different skin appendages.
Today, Nicolas Di-Poï and Michel C. Milinkovitch at the Department of Genetics and Evolution of the UNIGE Faculty of Science and at the SIB put this long controversy to rest by demonstrating that scales in reptiles develop from a placode with all the anatomical and molecular signatures of avian and mammalian placodes. The two scientists finely observed and analysed the skin morphological and molecular characteristics during embryonic development in crocodiles, snakes and lizards. 'Our study not only provides new molecular data that complement the work of the American team but also reveals key microanatomical facts, explains Michel Milinkovitch. Indeed, we have identified in reptiles new molecular signatures that are identical to those observed during the development of hairs and feathers, as well as the presence of the same anatomical placode as in mammals and birds. This indicates that the three types of skin appendages are homologous: the reptilian scales, the avian feathers and the mammalian hairs, despite their very different final shapes, evolved from the scales of their reptilian common ancestor.'
And finally
During their new study, the researchers from UNIGE and SIB also investigated the bearded dragon, a species of lizard that comes in three variants. The first is the normal wild-type form. The second has scales of reduced size because it bears one copy of a natural genetic mutation. The third has two copies of the mutation ... and lacks all scales. By comparing the genome of these three variants, Di-Poï and Milinkovitch have discovered the gene affected by this mutation. 'We identified that the peculiar look of these naked lizards is due to the disruption of the ectodysplasin-A (EDA), a gene whose mutations in humans and mice are known to generate substantial abnormalities in the development of teeth, glands, nails and hairs', says Michel Milinkovitch. The Swiss researchers have demonstrated that, when EDA is malfunctioning in lizards, they fail to develop a proper scale placode, exactly as mammals or birds affected with similar mutations in that same gene cannot develop proper hairs or feathers placodes. These data all coherently indicate the common ancestry between scales, feathers and hairs.
So what did this ancestral skin look like? All modern amniotes have very specialized skin structures which have little in common past early embryonic features.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @09:44AM
pak'ma'ra are chosen of God... very special. We can eat of all the creatures who walk and fly and crawl... but not of the fish in the sea.
(Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Sunday June 26 2016, @10:30AM
Just look at trees. Some of them have broad, flat, bright leaves. Others have short, dull needles. The end shape is irrelevant, it all comes from the same place & serves the same general function.
It doesn't take any stretch of the imagination to understand that scales are just hair with extra calcium, & feathers are hair that's shaped to catch more wind.
In other news water is wet, the sky is blue, grass is green, & bears go potty in the woods.
=-)p
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @11:37AM
The potential evolutionary link between hairs in mammals, feathers in birds and scales in reptiles has been debated for decades.
In a word, Duh.
It doesn't take any stretch of the imagination
Imagining is easy, proving is hard.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 26 2016, @01:22PM
For some good entertainment value, providing some background on why people like to argue about feathers:
http://creationwiki.org/Feathered_dinosaur [creationwiki.org]
Note that I think I'm providing the best explanation of my opponent's belief, which makes me pretty comfortable thinking their idea is BS. They're probably wrong if this is the best they can do, and I'm pretty sure this is the best they can do. If there's a better explanation from the creationist point of view I'd like to see it, test it.
Anyway feather evolution didn't just drop from they sky last year, there has been plenty of entertaining discussion on that specific topic.
I'm pretty sure feathers are an abrahamic religion thing. I have no idea, and don't really care, what the other 9999 equally likely to be correct religions think. But the popularity in the west of abrahamic religions does explain why the feather controversy gets a lot of play here (here as in the west), more or less.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Sunday June 26 2016, @01:40PM
There are HUMANS in this world that grow feathers.
There are literally documented cases of people with hair follicles that sprout tiny feathers instead of hairs.
We know this (though proving why is harder, as always).
So, before I even clicked on the link, I guessed that anything on something called Creation Wiki would be able to be debunked quite quickly.
"Dinosaurs obviously never had feathers because we cannot find a link in the 0.00001% of dinosaur remains that have survived to the modern day, so the evolutionists must be lying!"
Yeah. Right. Until you look and see that feathers are basically hairs, and there's documented cases of humans sprouting feathers. It's still there in our genes, it's just a case of sending a different instruction to the follicle cells when it's growing. In the same way that people keep telling you that fingernails and tusks / horns are basically the same material.
Up next: Eyes cannot have evolved because we can't believe they did.
Light sensitive plants, light-sensitive sea-creatures, light-sensitive sea creatures with clear protective covers, light-sensitive sea creatures with clear protective covers that act as a lens, light-sensitive sea creatures with lenses that get tiny muscles to move them, etc. etc. etc.
Yeah. Completely implausible. Over billions of years, billions of individual creatures, each genetically different from every other, and where one "mis-translation" of the DNA results in feathers instead of hairs.
Yeah. Right.
(Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:44PM
would love to see some reliable links. Searching Google gets me lots of news sites all reporting a single event with a baby growing a single feather out of its neck. looking for a reasonable number of scientific papers.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @03:00PM
I may discuss it if it weren't for the fact that I apparently got banned from posting for having a difference of opinion. Perhaps an atheist mod with too much influence here was too insecure to let opponents post, just like how they refuse to let dissenting opinions in schools.
Almost none of my posts on the subject or off got marked as troll or flamboyant and many got marked as interesting, insightful, or funny (and the few that may have got a negative designation got it removed shortly after as far as I can remember). Yet somehow I got banned (I am now posting from my phone).
So, yeah, the reason opponents don't respond isn't because they can't. It's because they apparently get banned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 26 2016, @05:53PM
Wait, you got banned for being religious? What the fuck. I'm probably the most outspoken (and, not to toot my own horn too much, but also long-studying) opponent of the Abrahamic religions on here, but I'd never support banning someone just because they're Jews/Christians/Muslims. The cure for bad ideas is ridicule and better ideas, not censorship...can you refer this to anyone in charge, maybe ask on the Soylent IRC channel?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday June 26 2016, @07:29PM
Sometimes ACs exaggerate or tell lies. In order to get (partially) banned, you need to get a lot of downmods. That process is reversible in a few ways. You also can normally only get to -1 on a comment.
At best, ACs have been "banned" for spam. If any religious person has been spambanned here, it probably had something to do with "marrying young girls" and "killing feminists". Switching IPs easily circumvents that, and making an account should as well. It is trivial to make a throwaway email for a throwaway Soylent account.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 26 2016, @09:53PM
Really, Mikee's been banned? Who was it I've been hitting upside the head with the Greatsword +1 Cluebringer for the last week then who keeps ranting about killing feminists and marrying little girls then?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 26 2016, @10:03PM
Individual IPs have probably been banned by a Spam mod, but they can be switched readily. Free VPNs are quite easy to find.
Mikee is one of the rare instances where you know that the same person is (likely) behind the keyboard, because of the distinctive style and content.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 26 2016, @03:00PM
It doesn't take any stretch of the imagination to understand that scales are just hair with extra calcium, & feathers are hair that's shaped to catch more wind.
But there's the possibility of parallel evolution ("the other proposes that the same genes are re-used for developing different skin appendages") which was a rival theory to this point. That doesn't take a big stretch of the imagination either.