{"id":166,"date":"2016-12-16T11:06:25","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T16:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/?p=166"},"modified":"2016-12-16T11:06:25","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T16:06:25","slug":"feathered-dinosaur-tail-encased-in-amber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/16\/feathered-dinosaur-tail-encased-in-amber\/","title":{"rendered":"Feathered Dinosaur Tail encased in Amber!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember in the movie\u00a0Jurassic Park where Richard Attenborough tells Sam Neil et al that\u00a0his scientists\u00a0obtained Dino DNA from prehistoric\u00a0mosquitoes that had been encased in amber. Well wouldn’t it be better just to have the dinosaur itself be encased in amber, or at least a part of one. Well it’s happened,\u00a0a\u00a0Chinese paleontologist named Xing Lida found the remarkable specimen in an amber market in northern Myanmar.<\/p>\n

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Feathered Dinosaur Tail encased in Amber<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The specimen is just a portion of the tail of a very small dinosaur, and it’s covered in feathers. Now, it’s not a bird, X-rays revel that the tail bones are arranged differently than those in birds. In fact paleontologists have identified the\u00a0fragment as belonging to a member of the coelurosaurian group and therefore a relative of the Mighty T-Rex and the well known velociraptors. Although this animal probably only grew to the size of a small bird.<\/p>\n

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Artists Impression of Bird sized Dinosaur<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Researchers haven’t been able to obtain any DNA but they have found soft tissue and decayed blood. This specimen has already given scientists a better idea of how dinosaurs, at least some, where covered in feathers rather than scales making them better able to control their body temperature and could provide the final proof that at least some dinosaurs were warm blooded.<\/p>\n

Looking for ordinary fossils is like looking for a needle in a haystack but trying to find such spectacular\u00a0specimens in amber is certainly needle in a haystack squared. Nevertheless you can be confident that dino hunters out there will be on the lookout and before to long maybe they will find that one specimen that does give us our first actual sample of Dino DNA.<\/p>\n

P.S. A couple of posts back I talked a little bit about Cosmic Inflation after the Big Bang and how some cosmologists, and me, think that a simpler\u00a0model is to\u00a0look at the\u00a0Big Bang as a Big Bounce from a previously contracting Universe. Well, Nova Next from PBS just released an article which goes deeper into that very subject. If you’re as interested as I am you can check it out by clicking\u00a0below.<\/p>\n

Did the Universe Start with a Bounce Instead of a Bang?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n