"This creates a new problem for those who insist that dinosaurs were ancestors of modern birds.  How can a bird hand, for example, with digits two, three and four evolve from a dinosaur hand that has only digits one, two and three?  That would be almost impossible."

So are the words of Dr. Alan Feduccia, professor and former chair of biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He and Dr. Julie Nowicki opened a series of live ostrich eggs at various stages of development and found what they believe to be proof that birds could not have descended from dinosaurs.

According to Feduccia, who has long been a strong critic of the belief that dinosaurs gave rise to birds, "There are insurmountable problems with that theory.  Beyond what we have just reported, there is the time problem in that superficially bird-like dinosaurs occurred some 25 million to 80 million years after the earliest known bird, which is 150 million years old."

If one views a chicken skeleton and a dinosaur skeleton through binoculars they appear similar, but close and detailed examination reveals many differences, Feduccia said. Theropod dinosaurs, for example, had curved, serrated teeth, but the earliest birds had straight, unserrated peg-like teeth. They also had a different method of tooth implantation and replacement.

The theory continues to wane, and it just might become the scientific community to give it up as nothing more than fairytale.

Just A Few Alterations Needed To Change A Reptile Into A Bird:
· A variety of feathers
· Growth of wings
· Strengthening of certain muscles
· Higher blood sugar levels and body temperature levels
· Total revision of respiratory, nervous, and reproductive systems
· Lightening of bones
· New digestive system
· New "instinctive" behaviors

Mammoth Attraction At Wildlife Park
by Jonathan Drake
TrueAuthority.com

According to The Time of London, Japanese scientists are planning to use tissue from the legs and testicles of a dead mammoth to clone the extinct creature and display it at an Ice Age wildlife park in Siberia.  Sounds crazy, doesn't it?  Welcome to the 21st century.

The wooly mammoth, believed by mainstream science to have become extinct roughly 10,000 years ago, could be brought back by using a technique which involves impregnating an Indian elephant - its closest genetic relative - with mammoth sperm and then repeating the procedure with its offspring.  The result?  88% mammoth in 50 years, according to the report.

Although methods of DNA extraction have improved over the years, complete strands of DNA from mammoths are hard to come by.  An interesting fact, especially considering that there are believed to be around ten million mammoths buried in the permafrost in Siberia.  Because of the sparse population in the region, however, only around one hundred specimens have been recovered.

Those behind the planned park are already populating the site in north-east Siberia with other species from the Ice Age in anticipation of the mammoth's arrival.  One thing's for certain . . . if they actually manage to pull it off, it'll be Jurassic Park brought to life, and will become an enormous world attraction unlike any other.

We'll just have to wait and see.

People Dumped Into Shark Tank
by Jonathan Robison
TrueAuthority.com

In a recent freak incident that would frighten the daylights out of anybody, a platform at the Aquarium of the Americas unexpectedly collapsed, dumping 10 people straight into a tank teeming with sharks. The accident happened while members of the aquarium were on an after-hours behind-the-scenes tour. 

According to aquarium spokeswoman Melissa Lee, the platform they were standing on is used by keepers to feed the sharks and is not usually open to the general public.  The steel footbridge in the Gulf of Mexico exhibit allows visitors to peer down into a 400,000 gallon tank home to everything from a few dozen nurse and sand tiger sharks to turtles, schools of redfish and stingrays.

"It just cracked. We held onto the bars and swam to the sides," said Erin Rooney, 14, who was on the catwalk with her family when it collapsed.  Meanwhile, Dan Rooney, her father, was frantically searching for his 2-year-old grandchild.  "I was just praying none of the sharks got agitated from all of the splashing and everything.  I mean, they got sharks in there bigger than me," he said.  To his relief, he soon saw someone hand the toddler to another person on the stable part of the catwalk.

"I've been told they took off and went to the other side of the exhibit," said Lee.  She went on to boast that staffers at the aquarium are trained to deal with emergencies like this one, and reacted quickly to the chaotic scene, pulling people from the waters using nearby flotation devices.

Staffers or no staffers, what a horrifying experience.

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