Friday, September 25, 2009

How to Build a Dinosaur

So I ran across this article (Canadian scientist aims to turn chickens into dinosaurs) describing how one scientist wants to build a dinosaur from a chicken embryo. Although I am fully in support of this (I think it is really cool) he makes a comment:

 "If I can demonstrate clearly that the potential for dinosaur anatomical development exists in birds, then it again proves that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs."

Now typically, most (and by most I mean at least 95%) of scientists do not debate this. It is a pretty well established fact (fact meaning that it is still a theory but a pretty damn well good one, like gravity) that birds came from dinosaurs. So who is he trying to prove this to? Anyone who does not believe in evolution won't believe the study anyway? I don't know, just my 2 cents.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

New Accretionary Wedge Call for Posts

The next Accretionary Wedge call for submissions is up over at cryology and co. Here is the blurb:

What remains to be discovered for future earth scientists what we (still) don't know about earth? What are the geological riddles that still lack answer - all questions are allowed - it could be a local anomaly, or a global phenomena, or something strange...(Naturally you can also include a possible answer to your problem)

So what don't we know?