Link between sea and land animals found

[blobrana]

"Neil Shubin, a University of Chicago professor of biology and anatomy and internationally renowned palaeontologist, will deliver a free public lecture at the University of Utah on his discovery of a fossil that has been dubbed the "missing link" between fish and land animals.
The fossil, Tiktaalik roseae, better known as the "fishapod," is a 375-million-year-old fish that was discovered in the Canadian Arctic in 2004 by Shubin and colleagues."

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[Walter L. Wagner]

I believe there is a lot more genetic information that has been developed showing that many of the genes that control fin development in fish are also present in limb development in land animals. I don't have the links at hand, and maybe someone can find them for us.

 

[synthesizer-patel]

Valich:

PS On the post re biofuels, it's been suggested that various algae produce copious amounts of oils that could become bio-diesel. Do you have any ideas on how best to go about growing such algae, and can this be done in tanks on land? To me, it seems difficult to grow large quantities of algae on an economic basis competitive with growing of land plants for their oils, sugars, etc., though I know we routinely harvest some kelps, etc. for some purposes for our agars, ice-creams, and spam-musubis, etc.

Your insight might be a boon to a future bio-fuel economy!

I read recently of an experiment using Bivalves from hydrothermal vents which derive all of their nutrition from symbiotic bacteria to clean up areas of industrial pollution high in metal sulfides - the resulting excess bacterial biomass was converted into synthetic fuels - this is just the type of elegant biology I like- if you want I'll try and dig out the paper for you.

If you are interested in plankton growth - look up Professor K J Flynn from swansea university on google scholar - he does a lot of work on plankton growth modelling and publishes pretty regularly in the Journal of Plankton Research- I find it all painfully dull personally though

 

[Walter L. Wagner]

Sure, I'll look at the link and paper if you find it.

 

[Reiku]

Crocodile like? It look more like a Pike to me

 

[blobrana]

"New exquisitely preserved fossils from Latvia cast light on a key event in our own evolutionary history, when our ancestors left the water and ventured onto land. Swedish researchers Per Ahlberg and Henning Blom from Uppsala University have reconstructed parts of the animal and explain the transformation in the new issue of Nature."

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[Enmos]

I don't see any post about this anywhere on Sciforums and I think it's an important discovery. The more the fossil record grows, the more it supports the fact of evolution.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4879672.stm

Awesome, thanks for sharing this

 

[blobrana]

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=55749&highlight=old news&page=9

 

[cosmictraveler]

Link between sea and land animals found

This last photo shows the mummy of a mermaid from the Shinto sect headquartered in the city of Fujinomiya near the base of Mt. Fuji. It was 170 cm in height and is the oldest and largest mermaid mummy, with 1,400 years for its age. The mummy has webbed hands with sharp claws and a 20-cm long tail.

http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/63436/mermaid_qjpreviewth.jpg