Can you imagine the world’s oceans filled with carnivorous reptiles? Dinosaurs are the most famous members of the age of the reptiles. However, many of the original reptilian fossil discoveries that initiated the idea of the age of reptiles were not dinosaurs. They were instead reptiles that lived in the sea.
I have one plant in my office that I have managed to keep alive for 5 years but mostly I keep organisms in my office that can't be killed because they are already dead. I'm a bit more extreme in my lab where I keep thousands of samples of DNA in freezers. In my office I... Continue Reading →
What do you think of when someone mentions the Jurassic or Cretaceous ages? Most likely you will immediately think of dinosaurs and other large reptiles such as pterosaurs. Maybe you think of the movie Jurassic Park, filled with dinosaurs and lush vegetation. This time has become known as the Age of the Reptiles and aptly so since... Continue Reading →
What is the largest animal to have ever lived on the Earth? Most people will answer “dinosaurs” or “sauropods” in particular. While some titanosaurs may have been the heaviest land animals they were not the largest animals to have lived on Earth. That distinction goes to an animal that is very much alive today: the... Continue Reading →
During the last ice age some 12 to 13 thousands years ago a young girl found herself wandering in caves of the Yucatan Peninsula likely looking for water. Hundreds of feet into a cave something happened and she fell in a deep pit breaking her pelvis. With no escape 100 feet down she died a lonely death. She... Continue Reading →
You might think of the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars as a assortment of space junk floating randomly in space. There are millions of asteroids of which more than 100,000 have been measured and mapped by astronomers. But analysis of those asteroids has shown that there are groups of asteroids that are related to one another and are referred to family members
Imagine you live in northern England and you are out exploring and come upon a hidden cave entrance. Upon climbing down into the cave you discover hundreds of bones belonging to large mammals. At first you think the bones represent local animals since there are some deer, rabbits, weasels and wolves but soon it becomes clear... Continue Reading →
"Approach, approach, ingenuous youth, and learn the fundamental truth: The Noble science of Geology Is founded firmly in Coprology. For ever be the Saurians blest, Who left us this diluvian test. I claim a grand coronam lauri, For these, Thesauri of the Sauri."
The Reverend William Buckland (1784-1856) was one of the last in a line of influential natural theologians following in the footsteps of John Ray (late 1600s) and William Paley (late 1700s). I recently gave a seminar in which I explored a number of significant turning points (figure below) in the history of discovery of deep time and the awareness... Continue Reading →
Yesterday I introduced the main character to this drama of the hunt for the elusive bird leptin. Now its time to introduce the other players and get on with recounting how the discovery of the bird leptin gene was made. Several years ago I began collaborating with Dr. Rich Londraville (UA Biology) on a project involving the... Continue Reading →
Last week the headlines read “elusive bird hormone found” and “discovery of the elusive leptin in birds.” It has been great to see so much interest in research I have been involved with for several years, but our paper (Reference 1) and the press blurbs associated with it only tell a small part of the... Continue Reading →
Everyone has encountered a T. rex in books, movies or museums. Besides its size and menacing jaws one of the most striking features of a T. rex is its diminutive arms. So why were the arms of T. rex so short? There have been many hypotheses including: 1) they had no use and... Continue Reading →
Just how long can DNA survive after the death of a cell or without cellular activity to maintain itself? I addressed this question a few months ago (Young Earth Creationism and Ancient DNA) and suggested that we would learn much more in the coming year. Already we have seen multiple complete genomes from fossil bones... Continue Reading →
Last night in a public broadcast Ken Ham announced that enough funds have been obtained to break ground for the huge "evangelistic project" - the Ark Encounter. The event was clearly designed to put-to-rest rumors that Answers in Genesis has run into money problems and that the project is in trouble. I do think they rightly pointed... Continue Reading →
Our perceptions of the age of an object are frequently based on our common experience but I have found that for many people those common experiences are of little help when it comes to examining objects for which a person has no experience at all. A couple of years ago this really hit me as... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 