Scientists map the genetic makeup of the platypus
SYDNEY, Australia — With a bill like a duck, a tail like a beaver and snake-like venom hidden in heel spurs, the platypus could be the result of some strange genetic experiment.
And it is, scientists say: evolution.
A scientific team published the genetic makeup of the Australian animal in the scientific journal Nature on Thursday, confirming that its features – which straddle multiple animal classes – are reflected in its DNA.
The research could help explain how mammals, including humans, evolved from reptiles millions of years ago, they said.
A longer story in ScienceDaily and the paper in Nature (if you have a subscription).
A very cool animal, for sure! A profound example that there is always an exception to every rule!
(except for that one of course)! 🙂
I ain’t no kin to no platypus!
If evolution is true, why are there still platypuses? 😉
OT to this post but the creationism “academic freedom” bill failed in Alabama as well.
Back on topic, platypus venom is very unusual for a couple of reasons: it is only found on males and thus is the only venom used primarily for territorial defense against (male) members of its own species. Second, it specifically targets pain receptors making it a unique substance for use in pain research.
” OT to this post but the creationism “academic freedom†bill failed in Alabama as well.
Hallelujah !
I wish I could have laid an egg 🙂
Got a link for the Alabama victory? I wanna go act like a creationist and rub some noses in this. Childish I know, but oh so satisying. 🙂
Wolfhound,
Sorry, I thought I posted the link. I got the info here:
http://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/alabama-creationism-bill-dies/
It ain’t over ’till Louisiana.
And Michigan and Missouri, although Ed Brayton thinks the bill will be killed in committee in Michigan. Have any other bills actually been filed?
And hat tip to PatrickHenry for breaking the news about the Alabama legislation.
James F said: “And hat tip to PatrickHenry for breaking the news about the Alabama legislation.”
If only you knew how I suffered searching for that one. It seems that the only news out of Alabama is about football.
I got a notice from the NEA that there is a Federal version of Academic Freedom legislation going through congress that applies to college level – something like what Baxley tried to do to Fl a few years ago but this is the feds! They did not give specifics and this is the first I have heard of it. ANyone know any more? Here is the NEA link: http://www.nea.org/lac/highered/freedomposition.html
Is there a Maine Citizens for Science? I can’t find one, and it’s looking like there needs to be one, or something like it. Creationists appear to be starting an effort there now. Nobody seems to be talking about it, either, which I find a bit disturbing. Nothing in the national press, the Science Blogs, or the NCSE.
Maybe some folks from Florida and Kansas ought to get in touch with the people in Maine trying to stop this latest effort at the local level and share tips and experiences with them?
My questions to the FCS:
1) Is science the only means for attaining knowledge?
2) How do you define truth?
3) How can empiricism escape the critque of Hume?
FROM AIG
It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the mapping of the genome of the funny, furry duck-billed platypus.
It is interesting to take a closer look at one of God’s strangest creatures, the duck-billed platypus, known for its odd combination of features. What isn’t so thrilling is to read the many evolutionary interpretations of the platypus genome!
The genome was published in the journal Nature by a group of more than 100 scientists from the U.S., U.K., and Australia. The platypus was chosen because of its unusual features—a duck bill, mole eyes, lizard eggs, and beaver tail—Chris Ponting of the University of Oxford’s MRC Functional Genetics Unit half joked. Unsurprisingly, this reflects evolutionists’ beliefs that platypuses are, in a way, at an evolutionary “crossroads†between mammal and reptile.
BBC News reports that the platypus genome shows “[t]he animal comes from an early branch of the mammal family . . . [h]owever, it lays eggs like a reptile . . . this unique mixture of features is reflected in its DNA.†We wonder how much this was just a case of scientists finding what they were already looking for, since Ponting adds that “the genome sequence enabled scientists to look back in time to see what an early mammal would have been likeâ€â€”in other words, the platypus was already regarded as a primitive mammal.
Louisiana State University’s Mark Batzer explained that “[o]ne big surprise [of the study] was the patchwork nature of the genome with avian, reptilian and mammalian features.†Yet since DNA is an organism’s blueprint for producing different features, and since the platypus does indeed have various bird-like and reptile-like features in addition to the various things that make it a mammal, we shouldn’t be at all surprised to find that that’s what the platypus genome codes for! In a way, this would be similar to finding a house that combined several styles of architecture that helped it match its landscape better, then looking at the house’s blueprint and discovering the same combination of architectural styles on the blueprint. Was it a strange conflation of styles by the errors of a photocopier, or was it the genius of a skillful architect who wanted to perfectly match the house to a unique environment?
ALSO FROM AIG (from the National Geographic News)
Dino-Era Bird Fossil Found; One of Oldest Knownâ€
Dubbed “the dawn of the Confucius bird,†a new bird fossil discovered in China is said to be from the time of the dinosaurs but is remarkably well preserved.
Officially named Eoconfuciusornis zhengi—as is translated above—the bird fossil was discovered outside of Beijing along a forested lakeside two years ago. Now, a team of scientists publishing in the journal Science in China describe the find.
Beijing Institute professor Zhang Fucheng, lead author on the study, explained, “Eoconfuciusornis was extraordinarily well preserved for the fossil to have contained such depth of detail.†According to the study, E. zhengi likely died, fell to the bottom of a lake, and “was quickly covered in sedimentâ€â€”131 million years ago.
Yet despite its age, National Geographic News reports that “[t]he specimen’s fully developed, modern-looking wings and symmetrically balanced tail feathers were etched into the stone in curved lines of black and brown.†(See the photo on National Geographic’s website.)
Thus, according to these scientists, this basically modern bird came shortly (on the evolutionary timescale) after Archaeopteryx—the notorious dino-to-bird “transitional formâ€â€”yet came before the likes of Microraptor gui, a supposed feathered dinosaur that also has been propped up as an example of the dino-to-bird transition.
Interestingly, the news of this modern bird from deep in the fossil record has not been widely reported, and the few evolutionists who have commented on it have generically said that it, e.g., “adds to the remarkable diversity of the species†(says Xing Xu of the Chinese paleontology institute, who discovered M. gui). For now, we have to wonder if that silence and those generic responses are a tacit acknowledgment that this “modern†bird shouldn’t have shown up so “early†in the fossil record.
Correct me if I’m wrong but Archaeopteryx has been dated as living around 155-150 million years ago. This newly discovered bird has been dated to around 131 million ears ago, thats a gap of 11 million years. So this is a problem how exactly?
The scientists who discovered it don’t seem to view it as a problem:
“The new discovery gives us a span of 11 million years of history for the Confuciusornis family, long enough to show patterns of evolution. Archaeopteryx was an efficient powered flapping flyer, but lacked many of the adaptations of the skeleton seen in modern birds – especially fusions of bones that support flight muscle and reduce length of the tail,” Mike Benton of the University of Bristol, UK, co-author of a description of Eoconfuciusornis with paleontologists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP)
http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Earliest-Toothless-Bird-131-Million-Year-Old-84693.shtml
Tilley, our fundie friends appears to be a Young Earth Creationist (given how enamored he is of C&Ping crap from AiG) so rejects any timespan greater than 10k years. A gap of 11 million years is, therefore, simply beyond his grasp since the entire universe wasn’t even a glimmer in God’s eye at that point.
LOL Wolfhound if he believes the universe is 10k years old then its not just evolution thats his problem its pretty much the whole of modern day science.
I think what amazed me the most was the out-right bare faced lying in the AIG piece, stating there is some sort of silence in the ‘evolutionist(?)’ camp when all you have to do is type Eoconfuciusornis into google and you’ll come up with numerous blogs, news articles and other pieces on it. Just who exactly do they think their fooling? Anybody with an internet connection can refute their claims.
AIG has learned that if they use outright lies, but use sciency words that people like McDonald here will believe them. AIG is nothing more than a coping mechanism for deluded fundamentalists to use whenever they encounter a scientific discovery that may shatter their delusional worldview. They can be comforted by lies and then sleep easy at night.