The oldest fossil of a modern bird found

[Still Waters]

The oldest fossil of a modern bird yet found, dating from the age of dinosaurs, has been identified by an international team of palaeontologists.

The spectacular fossil, affectionately nicknamed the 'Wonderchicken', includes a nearly complete skull, hidden inside nondescript pieces of rock, and dates from less than one million years before the asteroid impact which eliminated all large dinosaurs.

Writing in the journal Nature, the team, led by the University of Cambridge, believe the new fossil helps clarify why birds survived the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period, while the giant dinosaurs did not.

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-wonderchicken-fossil-age-dinosaurs-reveals.html

[stevewinn]

what was this other news that they've found DNA in a Dinosaur fossil. leading to the thinking that DNA can last longer than a Billion years. Jurassic park. Bingo Dino DNA. It'll be expensive. they'll have a coupon day.

[Jon the frog]

On 3/18/2020 at 1:59 PM, stevewinn said:

what was this other news that they've found DNA in a Dinosaur fossil. leading to the thinking that DNA can last longer than a Billion years. Jurassic park. Bingo Dino DNA. It'll be expensive. they'll have a coupon day.

Unlocking sleeping gene in bird would be easier to have something that look like a dinosaur... https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/dinosaur-chicken-and-back-again/

[stevewinn]

9 minutes ago, Jon the frog said:

Unlocking sleeping gene in bird would be easier to have something that look like a dinosaur... https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/dinosaur-chicken-and-back-again/

interesting. but would it not be a mutated bird instead of a proper Dinosaur?

[Jon the frog]

4 hours ago, stevewinn said:

interesting. but would it not be a mutated bird instead of a proper Dinosaur?

They have the genome to do it, they have done the tail, the teeth the missing bones, in the legs... it's just unchecking genome that chicken already possess.

If they have found some dinosaur DNA, it will be so destroyed that anything done with it will be a mutated something too... and surely not in good health.

Edited March 20, 2020 by Jon the frog