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Dinosaurs Predated Saturn’s Moons

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"Saturn"

Saturn’s rings are made out of an assortment of satellites, debris, gases and dust.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – Some of the planets and natural satellites in our solar system are billions of years old; they were moving around the Sun before the first bacteria even appeared on Earth. But it seems that there are a few celestial bodies that are quite young comparing to the age of our galaxy, even comparing to the appearance of life on our planet. According to SETI researchers, dinosaurs predated Saturn’s moons, making them the youngest bodies in the vicinity.

The SETI Institute researchers studied the moons and gases that surround Saturn. And they discovered that some of the portions of the rings were less than 100 million years old. This means that the dinosaurs predated Saturn’s moons.

The gas giant’s belt is made out of an assortment of gases, satellites, icy objects and debris. Most of them are affected by tidal interactions between the planet’s inner liquid and the inner satellites. The rings have been tilted and pushed farther out over the billions of years that have passed since our solar system was formed.

But the orbital tilts and shifts can also be caused by the gravitational interactions of the moons. These bodies enter into occasional orbital resonances that tilts and pulls them from their original orbits.

In order to better understand the interactions that take place between the different objects, the researchers from SETI build a computer model that mimicked the rings. Upon doing so, they discovered that Dione, Tethys and Rhea presented fewer alterations than they initially presumed.

This means that the three satellites were subjected to fewer gravitational interactions and tidal forces. And since the laws of physics do not discriminate, the only possible explanation for the pristine state of the three moons is that they are rather new additions to the rings system of the gas giant.

Using data gathered from the geothermal activity of Enceladus, the researchers managed to estimate the strength of the tidal forces of Saturn. And from the considerable and consistent geothermal activity of Enceladus, it seems that the forces are quite high.

Judging by the potency of the tidal forces and the moderate degree of alteration present on the surface of the three moons, the researchers concluded that Dione, Tethys and Rhea are only approximately one hundred million years old.

It seems that dinosaurs predated Saturn’s moons. But the team that worked on the study claims that there is a significant possibility that the gas giant had additional moons in its inner rings, but that they were destroyed by orbital resonance.

The full article can be found in in this month’s edition of the Astrophysical Journal.

Image source: Pixabay

Scientists Created Dinosaur-Legged Chickens

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"Dinosaur"

The thighs of dinosaurs were better equipped because they had to be fast in order to survive.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – Scientists created dinosaur-legged chickens which makes some think that science is a fascinating field. But in order to obtain the results that sometimes get the scientists a Nobel nominalization, they must experiment. And when you have knowledge by your side there is little you can’t do.

The fact that modern-day birds have evolved from dinosaurs is known for quite a time now. Researchers have even discovered a link between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the hummingbird. But the process that led to the evolution is what eludes the brilliant minds of the present.

That is why scientists created dinosaur-legged chickens. They wanted to see how the transition between the legs of an ordinary chicken and those of a reptile that went extinct a couple of million years ago.

The modern-day chicken’s legs, or the drumsticks as KFC goers might know them, are made out of two major bones: the tibia (the thicker one, which people usually hold onto when eating a drumstick) and the fibula (the one that resembles a spine).

While still in the embryonic state, the bones are developed in equal length. But as the embryo starts to mature, the tibia ends up outgrowing the fibula which is then only attached to the knee. Because of this evolutionary mechanism, the chicken’s legs are no longer as powerful as they were when they roamed the Earth as mighty reptiles.

For a better understanding of the evolutionary process that left chickens with tiny fibulas, Alexander Vargas and Joâo Botelho from the Chile University decided to genetically modify an embryo. The two Chilean scientists tampered with the chicken’s DNA sufficiently enough to make both the bones grow at equal lengths.

Basically, the two scientists created dinosaur-legged chickens for the sake of analyzing the evolutionary pathway of dinosaur’s feet.

But there are other voices in the scientific community who say that the experiment didn’t just created dinosaur legs, but it also brought back some dinosaur traits. These traits that Hans Larsson at McGill University speaks about are awfully familiar to the opening credits of Jurassic Park.

Michael Crichton imaged the whole process a little bit different. He based his novel on the idea of scientists discovering dinosaur DNA in a fossilized mosquito and then cloning them. But it seems that Vargas and Botelho came up with a better idea.

Researchers could just take the descendants of the great reptiles and reverse their DNA to create new dinosaurs.

Scientists created dinosaur-legged chickens, and that may be the first step towards a real Jurassic Park. Somebody should call Chris Pratt.

Image source: www.pixabay.com

Dinosaurs Were Ancestors of the Fierce Lizard

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"T-Rex skeleton"

The T-rex and the hummingbird are related, and the existence of the fierce lizard is proof.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – Researchers have discovered a missing link in the great reptiles’ family tree recently. It seems that the dinosaurs were ancestors of the fierce lizard, or Teyujagua, as the scientists call it. The extinct cold-blooded creature is the connection between dinosaurs and modern-day reptiles that researchers were looking for.

Roughly a billion years before the scientists found the fossilized skull of the Teyujagua paradoxa, a massive event affected all of the animals that dwelled on Earth at the time. The “Great Extinction”, or “The Great Dying”, as the names suggest it, almost cleared our planet of living life forms.

And for about 200 million years, the fierce lizard ruled the sea and the land, before it evolved in it modern-day reptilian forms. Of course, there were other animals left, but as far as lizards go, the Teyuiagua was the only one found to have survived the “Great Extinction.”

The skull of the fierce reptilian survivor was unearthed in the southern parts of Brazil. A study was then published in a specialized journal, mentioning critical factors such as the results of the carbon dating and the tremendous scientific value of the discovery.

The existence of material evidence that proves that the Twyuiagua paradoxa lived right after the event known as the “Great Dying” is the missing link that scientists were searching for. The fierce lizard now perfectly connects the evolution of the archosauriformes from the original lizards.

Fun fact, the archosauriforms family includes the notorious T-Rex and the image of delicacy, the hummingbird.

And since every important scientific discovery has an accident at its origin, the skull of the Twyuiagua paradoxa is no different. The fossil was discovered when one of the researchers present on the site tripped on a larger rock which ended up containing the remains of the most important lizard in the reptilian evolution history.

The paleontologists that happened upon the fossilized remains of the missing reptile are planning to continue with their research on the site. They are hoping that the Teyujagua was not the only missing link that was preserved in the area 250 million years ago.

The archosauriform vertebrates group, which has now a clear evolutionary pathway thanks to the discovery of the Teyujagua, includes a spectacularly diverse number of animals. From the Brachiosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus Rex to the crocodile and the hummingbird, all of them share the Teyujagua in their family tree.

Dinosaurs were ancestors of the fierce lizard, but the hummingbird is its descendants. Sometimes evolution proves to be an ironic branch of science.

Image source: www.wikimedia.org

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