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About Who Lies Sleeping?
I see a hot misty world with cloudy white skies and rain—endless torrential rain. Large fields are drained by sinuous ditches and grazed by unicorn-li…
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Anthroposaurus sapiens (53)
- New Ideas about 85-million-year-old sea monster: Mosasaur
  Advanced, shark like swimming began in mosasaurs millions of years earlier than we previously thought.
- Menopause
  Has the menopause a role in the evolution of intelligence?
- The Dinosauroid: A Humanoid Dinosaur
  Dale Russell's dinosauroid was a serious scientific speculation, but not a testable hypothesis, and was never claimed to have been.
- Wikipedia on “Reptilian Humanoid”
  Wikipedia, the amateur online encyclopedia, has a reference—in its item sub voce Reptilian Humanoid—to Darren Naish’s blogged critique of Who…
- Who Lies Sleeping? Impossible to Find—Illogical Contraption
  Naish calls attention to another, far more obscure book and writer—Mike Magee and his paranoid 1993 psuedoscience rant Who Lies Sleeping?
- What if the Asteroid had Missed?
  "If it’s such a good solution for us, is it so difficult to imagine it could be a good solution for a dinosaur, therefore a “dinosauroid”?"
- Oil Explosion Killed Dinosaurs
  He was searching sediments for cenospheres—microscopic carbon beads regarded as signs of industrial activity—and found them at the end of the age…
- In Error—Mammoths
  Mammoths possibly only died out in historical times
- Talking as Social Grooming in Humans
  Language evolved so that we could gossip. Talking replaced the social grooming of primates like chimpanzees
- Intelligence in Animals
  Some animals seem to know the medicinal or pesticidal properties of some plants
- What is the Dinosaur Heritage? 2
  We have a very odd civilization indeed!
- What is the Dinosaur Heritage? 1
  Do we suffer from the same affliction as the anthroposaurs and perhaps all intelligent life forms—some self-destructive syndrome that is a sine qua non…
- The Decay of a City
  Civilization is skin deep. Almost everything that we make in the modern world will disappear into dust or rust in a thousand years. In 65,000 times that…
- Our Hubris?
  Lovelock and Allaby assure us, "Our power to destroy the world, or even ourselves, is quite imaginary, a product of our hubris". So we are all right then!
- Parallels Between Nuclear War and An Asteroid Impact
  Luis Alverez, in 1982, drew the parallels between the asteroid collision and a nuclear war
- Nuclear Effects
  If a nuclear war could cause extinctions now, why shouldn’t a nuclear war among anthroposaurs have done the same then?
- Lessons in Extinction Nuclear War
  Any advanced society worth its salt will have discovered the equivalence of matter and energy. Did the anthroposaurs?
- Parallels with the Cretaceous
  The fall in variation of the hadrosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous might indicate they were herded
- The Greenhouse Effect
  The release of bound carbon is building up carbon dioxide in the air at the same rate as the burning of fossil fuels
- Chemical Pollution and Entropy
  Entropy is chemical pollution
- Heavy Metals and Entropy
  Entropy is pollution by heavy metals
- Pollution and Entropy
  Pollution is a symptom of increasing entropy, a scientific measure of disorder
- Imbalance of Biomass
  What we see is a reduction of species variety together with an increase in actual numbers of some animals. That is just what happened at the end of the…
- Rates of Extinction
  Humans have exterminated many varieties of animals and birds, though some of them, like the bison, existed in vast numbers
- Intellectual Rivals to Humans
  The prehistory of mankind has many examples of apparently unnecessary killing
- Intelligence and Extinction
  We have murdered our intellectual rivals.
- Metallic Object in Solid Rock
  They offer a detailed record of a strange race of beings of an alien culture
- Odder Oddities
  Science often progresses by looking at oddities, apparent violations of received knowledge. Yet much of this is ignored.
- Impossible Fossil Footprints
  If the tracks are accepted as human, then scientists will be forced either to place man back in time to the Cretaceous period or to bring the dinosaurs forward…
- Curious Traces Found in Rocks
  Prior civilizations are buried so deeply within the lower strata of the earth that we simply do not have any archaeological evidence of their existence.
- All the Dinosaurs that Lived
  Millions of species of dinosaur lived that we know nothing about, and warm blooded species die out faster than cold blooded ones. Maybe intelligent ones die…
- Precursors of the Intelligent Dinosaurs
  Possible precursors of intelligent dinosaurs, and a diagram of dinosaur evolution leading to birds from the same type of precursor
- Dinosaur Parenting
  Hadrosaurs certainly seemed to protect their young in a nest, and the hatchlings grew rapidly
- Pterosaurs as Parents
  But did pterosaurs, like birds, look after their young?
- Live Birth among Dinosaurs?
  The idea of some dinosaurs giving birth to live young is risible. Is it?
- Dinosaur Eggs and Nests
  If we suppose dinosaurs were like birds we should expect them to have laid eggs and had nests
- Parental Care
  Were dinosaurs attentive parents?
- Hunting
  If hunting is an important factor in the rise of intellect, then the predatory carnivorous dinosaurs qualified very well
- Sounds and Speech
  Dinosaurs certainly could hear, and birds and crocodiles, their nearest relatives, make sounds, so it seems dinosaurs must also have been able to communicate…
- Brains
  Birds might be bird brained but can be amazingly intelligent, yet some dinosaurs had brains of the same size to body ratio as birds
- Binocular Vision
  Binocular vision is important if intelligence is to evolve, and the troodon was binocular and had grasping hands!
- Bipedal with Manipulative Hands
  Dinosaurs that were bipedal and with grasping hands were rather common
- But a Thinking Dinosaur?
  Factors that can be examined in dinosaurs that match with the factors for intelligence in hominids
- Hunting
  Some think aspects of hunting contributed to our growth in intellect
- Cooperation
  Humans were social animals but cooperation was much strengthened in the sociability promoted through gathering, an activity of the women and children
- Breast Feeding and Pregnancy
  Suckling was important in delaying further pregnancy leaving mothers with fewer children and more time to each child
- Long Childhood
  Parental care and a long childhood seem important in the evolution of intelligence but human hunter gatherers scarcely differ from apes in this respect
- Speech
  Speech is important to human society, but evolved too late to havebeen important in the evolution of intelligence. Rather it is a sign of it
- Brain to Body Ratio
  Is brain to body ratio a better criterion of intelligence than simple brain size?
- Brain Size
  Brain size seems obviously correlated with intelligence but quite how is not so obvious
- Bipedalism
  The importance to the evolution of intelligence of being hands free
- Who Lies Sleeping? Home
  Contents and menu of Who Lies Sleeping? The book uses paleontological evidence to suggest a reptoid race actually evolved in the Cretaceous age and destroyed…
- Time’s Secrets
  Time holds many secrets, even from not long ago. Very profound truths from very long ago, might defy our belief.
Dinosaurs (75)
- 'Stocky dragon' dinosaur terrorized Late Cretaceous Europe
  Paleontologists have discovered that tells us what Late Cretaceous predatory dinosaurs in Europe looked like. It was Balaur bondoc, “stocky dragon”,…
- Dinosaurs Destroyed by Multiple Asteroid Impacts and Vulcanism
  Shankar Chatterjee thinks the Chicxulub asteroid and Shiva would have to combine, perhaps with the Deccan Traps eruptions, to induce the global extinction of…
- Why the Isle of Wight is Dinosaur Island
  Fires and floods raged across the Isle of Wight some 130 million years ago explaining why thousands of tiny dinosaur teeth and bones lie buried alongside the…
- New Ideas about 85-million-year-old sea monster: Mosasaur
  Advanced, shark like swimming began in mosasaurs millions of years earlier than we previously thought.
- Menopause
  Has the menopause a role in the evolution of intelligence?
- Study finds Triceratops and Torosaurus were different stages of the same dinosaur
  Study finds Triceratops and Torosaurus were different stages of the same dinosaur.
- Giant Dinosaurs did not Chew
  Today’s terrestrial animals are nowhere near reaching the Jurassic size record. The reason is that mammals chew, giant dinosaurs gulped.
- New Horned Dinosaurs in North America
  Spectacular new horned dinosaurs of two different types have been found in North America.
- Some sauropods held their long necks high
  The long necks of sauropod dinosaurs really were held high, in spite of theories suggesting they were more likely to keep their necks low because of the high…
- Warm-blooded sea reptiles of the Jurassic
  Reptiles roaming the oceans at the time of the dinosaurs were warm blooded. They could maintain a constant body temperature well above that of the surrounding…
- X-rays show chemistry of Archaeopteryx transition fossil feathers as bird-like
  The chemical maps show that portions of the Archeopteryx feathers are not merely impressions of long decomposed organic material, as was previously believed,…
- A shrunken giant: Island dino Magyarosaurus was a dwarf, after all
  Sauropod dinosaurs, like the famous Brachiosaurus or Argentinosaurus, are known above all for their enormous size. Yet some of these giants evolved into…
- Feather structures in maturing dinosaurs changed as they grew
  The feather structure of this dinosaur changed quite dramatically as the animals grew older. It was most likely that the animals moulted, replacing their…
- Retracing the tracks of dinosaurs reveals ecosystem the size of a continent
  The entire western interior of North America was probably once populated by a single community of dinosaurs. According to a statistical analysis of the fossil…
- Dinosaurs Cold-Blooded?
  Scientific speculation is disdained by the authorities, yet all science needs speculation to progress. A hypothesis is a speculation.
- Danger and adventure in the tale of Dippy
  Dippy is the affectionate nickname given to the 26-metre-long Diplodocus skeleton that dominates the Museum’s Central Hall. The dinosaur is an icon that has…
- What if the Asteroid had Missed?
  "If it’s such a good solution for us, is it so difficult to imagine it could be a good solution for a dinosaur, therefore a “dinosauroid”?"
- Mammal-like Reptiles Lived with the Dinosaurs
  Dinosaurs so dominated the landscape in ancient times that they have dominated the minds of Palaeontologists too. Dr Nicholas Fraser explains that now people…
- Imbalance of Biomass
  What we see is a reduction of species variety together with an increase in actual numbers of some animals. That is just what happened at the end of the…
- Rates of Extinction
  Humans have exterminated many varieties of animals and birds, though some of them, like the bison, existed in vast numbers
- Intellectual Rivals to Humans
  The prehistory of mankind has many examples of apparently unnecessary killing
- Intelligence and Extinction
  We have murdered our intellectual rivals.
- Changing Causes
  Dinosaurs were already virtually extinct and had been in decline for five million years before the supposed fall of the asteroid.
- Age of the Manson Impact Crater
  Core drilling of the crater in 1991-92 resulted in a new dating from melt-precipitated feldspars reported in Science of about 74 million years ago
- Features of the KT Breccia Layer
  The breccia layer associated with the impact in Yucatan might have other explanations
- Volcanic Activity?
  Careful testing of the iridium layer showed that the iridium concentration seemed to build up slowly during the last few thousand years prior to the supposed…
- Doubts about an Impact
  A fall in sea level draining the shallow continental seas could have triggered the mass extinctions
- Jeff Poling on the Asteroid Impact
  The fossil record showed that the impact event caused an unusually high number of extinctions in North America
- Chicxulub and Manson Crater
  A crater in the Yucatan peninsula is the prime candidate.
- Some Candidates
  The Apollo class of asteroids are prime candidates. But where is the crater?
- Analysis of the K-T Clay Layer
  Tektites and meteoric materials confirmed that a massive meteorite, the size of an asteroid, had shaken the earth.
- How are the Mighty Fallen? An Impact?
  One explanation of dinosaur extinction it is claimed can take in all the feasible theories so far reviewed—an asteroid of exceptional size hit the earth
- The Antarctic Continent
  The cooling of the oceans as Antarctica passes over the South Pole has brought the risk of a freeze up within the bounds of possibility
- Ice Ages
  At the time of the dinosaur extinctions no continent was at a pole, though Antarctica and Australia were near the South Pole
- How are the Mighty Fallen? Cold?
  Were the dinosaurs destroyed by cooling?
- How are the Mighty Fallen? Radiation from Space?
  Another group of theories blame the extinctions on an increase in radiation from space
- How are the Mighty Fallen? Temperature?
  Heating by the greenhouse effect is a likely cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs and would also have affected many other species
- How are the Mighty Fallen? Theories
  Lack of oxygen disadvantaged reptiles less than it did mammals, therefore the reptiles dominated
- Genera Surviving the Late Cretaceous
  Cretaceous extinctions—not all living things were equally affected
- How are the Mighty Fallen
  The extinction of the dinosaurs—the greatest of all titillating puzzles
- Impossible Fossil Footprints
  If the tracks are accepted as human, then scientists will be forced either to place man back in time to the Cretaceous period or to bring the dinosaurs forward…
- All the Dinosaurs that Lived
  Millions of species of dinosaur lived that we know nothing about, and warm blooded species die out faster than cold blooded ones. Maybe intelligent ones die…
- Not True Feathers?
  Some experts thought the feathers of sinosauropteryx were not true feathers, but all the evidence points to warm blood in these comsognathids and dromaeosaurs
- Sinosauropteryx
  Sinosauropteryx seems an important missing link between dinosaurs and birds, having feathers
- Pterosaurs—The Hairy Dragons
  Pterosaurs were diverse and successful animals that occupied the same niche as birds do today.
- Did Dinosaurs have Feathers?
  Feathers or Scales?
- Precursors of the Intelligent Dinosaurs
  Possible precursors of intelligent dinosaurs, and a diagram of dinosaur evolution leading to birds from the same type of precursor
- Dinosaur Parenting
  Hadrosaurs certainly seemed to protect their young in a nest, and the hatchlings grew rapidly
- Pterosaurs as Parents
  But did pterosaurs, like birds, look after their young?
- Live Birth among Dinosaurs?
  The idea of some dinosaurs giving birth to live young is risible. Is it?
- Dinosaur Eggs and Nests
  If we suppose dinosaurs were like birds we should expect them to have laid eggs and had nests
- Parental Care
  Were dinosaurs attentive parents?
- Hunting
  If hunting is an important factor in the rise of intellect, then the predatory carnivorous dinosaurs qualified very well
- Sounds and Speech
  Dinosaurs certainly could hear, and birds and crocodiles, their nearest relatives, make sounds, so it seems dinosaurs must also have been able to communicate…
- Brains
  Birds might be bird brained but can be amazingly intelligent, yet some dinosaurs had brains of the same size to body ratio as birds
- Binocular Vision
  Binocular vision is important if intelligence is to evolve, and the troodon was binocular and had grasping hands!
- Bipedal with Manipulative Hands
  Dinosaurs that were bipedal and with grasping hands were rather common
- But a Thinking Dinosaur?
  Factors that can be examined in dinosaurs that match with the factors for intelligence in hominids
- Long Childhood
  Parental care and a long childhood seem important in the evolution of intelligence but human hunter gatherers scarcely differ from apes in this respect
- Speech
  Speech is important to human society, but evolved too late to havebeen important in the evolution of intelligence. Rather it is a sign of it
- Brain to Body Ratio
  Is brain to body ratio a better criterion of intelligence than simple brain size?
- Brain Size
  Brain size seems obviously correlated with intelligence but quite how is not so obvious
- Bipedalism
  The importance to the evolution of intelligence of being hands free
- Early Birds
  A few of the increasing list of early birds
- Display, Fighting and Flying
  Cowan and Lipps thought birds might have been feathered dinosaurs that used their forelimbs in fighting displays
- Dinosaurs as Birds
  Comparing Dinosaurs with Birds
- The Meaning of Warm and Cold Blood
  Metabolism depends on temperature and thus on the warmth of the blood. Some technical terms explained.
- Dinosaurs Victorious!
  During the Triassic period the confrontation between the mammal-like reptiles and the forerunners of the dinosaurs was head on. In Bakker’s words: A…
- The Emergence of Warm Bloodedness
  How the first hot blooded animals emerged
- Where are Mass Homeotherms Today?
  Ultimately, it seems being hot blooded is superior to being bulky. Being bulky rather than hot blooded is not a survival strategy today
- Mass Homeotherms
  Size was a virtue. Bulky animals do not vary a lot in temperature, but not all dinosaurs were bulky, and some had feathers, a sign of hot blood
- Warm Bloodedness in Dinosaurs
  Considering the big lumbersaurs, the soft parts of dinosaurs and bipedalism
- Dinosaurs Built for Speed
  Various measures show that some dinosaurs were anything but sluggish.
- The Physiology of Dinosaurs
  The young rebels challenged orthodoxy showing from physiology that dinosaurs were not just big lizards.
- Who Lies Sleeping? Home
  Contents and menu of Who Lies Sleeping? The book uses paleontological evidence to suggest a reptoid race actually evolved in the Cretaceous age and destroyed…
Birds (16)
- Feathers too weak for early bird flight
  Early birds, Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis, were poor at flying a study of the biomechanics of their feathers shows.
- X-rays show chemistry of Archaeopteryx transition fossil feathers as bird-like
  The chemical maps show that portions of the Archeopteryx feathers are not merely impressions of long decomposed organic material, as was previously believed,…
- Bird molecules support rapid evolution
  Evolution can happen quickly given the right circumstances, Dr Steve Trewick says, explaining a study of New Zealand»s birds.
- Feather structures in maturing dinosaurs changed as they grew
  The feather structure of this dinosaur changed quite dramatically as the animals grew older. It was most likely that the animals moulted, replacing their…
- Dinosaurs and Birds
  Archeopteryx was a species that looked like a theropod but had flight feathers, and so looked like a primitive bird. Birds are now considered to be flying…
- More Clever Birds!
  A large number of studies on both corvids and apes, and have found that the crow’s performance is on a par with or better than apes’.
- Crows as Clever as Great Apes
  Western scrub jays are able to second guess another’s intentions, they have a theory of mind.
- Not True Feathers?
  Some experts thought the feathers of sinosauropteryx were not true feathers, but all the evidence points to warm blood in these comsognathids and dromaeosaurs
- Sinosauropteryx
  Sinosauropteryx seems an important missing link between dinosaurs and birds, having feathers
- Did Dinosaurs have Feathers?
  Feathers or Scales?
- Precursors of the Intelligent Dinosaurs
  Possible precursors of intelligent dinosaurs, and a diagram of dinosaur evolution leading to birds from the same type of precursor
- Colour Vision
  Seeing colour is an important quality in animals and birds, but generally it is superior in birds, and might therefore have been in dinosaurs
- Early Birds
  A few of the increasing list of early birds
- Display, Fighting and Flying
  Cowan and Lipps thought birds might have been feathered dinosaurs that used their forelimbs in fighting displays
- Dinosaurs as Birds
  Comparing Dinosaurs with Birds
- A Case of Fossil Forgery?
  Hoyle and Wickramasinghe tried to show the Archeopteryx fossils were frauds, simultaneously attacking Darwinism. While panspermia might have some virtues,…
Authority (15)
- Co-ordinated Punishment Leads to Increased Co-operation in Large Groups
  Co-operation in large groups is maintained by punishment.
- Should Experts be Humble?
  Experts need the humility to realize that their knowledge is always partial. Total confidence is unwarranted except in some mature subjects.
- New research finds bureaucracy linked to a nation's growth
  Since the bureaucratic state as a political form originally evolved through a process of predatory expansion, we should not be surprised if states continue to…
- Wikipedia on “Reptilian Humanoid”
  Wikipedia, the amateur online encyclopedia, has a reference—in its item sub voce Reptilian Humanoid—to Darren Naish’s blogged critique of Who…
- In Praise of Scientific Heresy
  "We have to think the unthinkable to take science forward, even if it annoys the establishment."
- Unreasoning Obedience
  By yielding to authority we can absolve ourselves of guilt
- All the Dinosaurs that Lived
  Millions of species of dinosaur lived that we know nothing about, and warm blooded species die out faster than cold blooded ones. Maybe intelligent ones die…
- Using Parsimony
  Some practical examples of the use of Occam’s Razor
- Occam’s Razor or Parsimony
  Parsimony, parsimonious and Occam’s Razor often appear in books on dinosaurs. What do they mean? Jeff Poling has offered a useful explanation of the…
- Experts and Funding Research
  If a problem has not yet been solved then no one is an expert on it. Rather those who have been working on it a long time are failures. Maybe the funding of…
- The Right to Unorthodoxy
  Crankiness can be very productive. Unorthodoxy is an academic right.
- A Footprint Expert
  Important human tracks were almost ignored when a footprint expert said they were prints of a horse. Like many ancient finds, they have been destroyed by…
- Experts: All or Nothing at All
  The claim to know it all, but often know nothing. Some failures of overconfident experts.
- Some Experts in Paleontology
  The authorities continued to get it wrong while the amateurs made the discoveries!
- Experts and Iconoclasts
  Scientists too often form a mutual protection society to fend off challenges to conventional knowledge. Open mindedness is essential in science, and amateurs…
Stratigraphy (9)
- Dinosaurs Destroyed by Multiple Asteroid Impacts and Vulcanism
  Shankar Chatterjee thinks the Chicxulub asteroid and Shiva would have to combine, perhaps with the Deccan Traps eruptions, to induce the global extinction of…
- Why the Isle of Wight is Dinosaur Island
  Fires and floods raged across the Isle of Wight some 130 million years ago explaining why thousands of tiny dinosaur teeth and bones lie buried alongside the…
- Scientists discover oldest evidence of stone tool use and meat-eating among human ancestors
  Human ancestors were using stone tools and consuming meat from large mammals nearly million years earlier than previously thought.
- Genera Surviving the Late Cretaceous
  Cretaceous extinctions—not all living things were equally affected
- Metallic Object in Solid Rock
  They offer a detailed record of a strange race of beings of an alien culture
- Odder Oddities
  Science often progresses by looking at oddities, apparent violations of received knowledge. Yet much of this is ignored.
- Curious Traces Found in Rocks
  Prior civilizations are buried so deeply within the lower strata of the earth that we simply do not have any archaeological evidence of their existence.
- All the Dinosaurs that Lived
  Millions of species of dinosaur lived that we know nothing about, and warm blooded species die out faster than cold blooded ones. Maybe intelligent ones die…
- Pillars of Stratigraphy
  Cuvier and Smith saw that rocks were laid down in layers or strata with fossils in them that could be used to date them.
Reptiles (5)
- Warm-blooded sea reptiles of the Jurassic
  Reptiles roaming the oceans at the time of the dinosaurs were warm blooded. They could maintain a constant body temperature well above that of the surrounding…
- Dinosaurs Cold-Blooded?
  Scientific speculation is disdained by the authorities, yet all science needs speculation to progress. A hypothesis is a speculation.
- Wikipedia on “Reptilian Humanoid”
  Wikipedia, the amateur online encyclopedia, has a reference—in its item sub voce Reptilian Humanoid—to Darren Naish’s blogged critique of Who…
- Mammal-like Reptiles Lived with the Dinosaurs
  Dinosaurs so dominated the landscape in ancient times that they have dominated the minds of Palaeontologists too. Dr Nicholas Fraser explains that now people…
- Cold-blooded Qualities Not Enough
  Reptiles survived the extinction, and many species live still, but they do not have the qualities for dominance
Homo (54)
- First clear evidence of feasting in early humans
  People around the time of this feast were intensively using the plants and animals that their descendants later domesticated. The combination of increased…
- Classic Maya history is embedded in commoners' homes
  Maya in the Classic period (250-900 AD) regularly terminated their homes, razing the walls, burning the floors and placing artifacts and sometimes human…
- Menopause
  Has the menopause a role in the evolution of intelligence?
- Scientists discover oldest evidence of stone tool use and meat-eating among human ancestors
  Human ancestors were using stone tools and consuming meat from large mammals nearly million years earlier than previously thought.
- Complete Neanderthal genome yields insights into human evolution and evidence of interbreeding
  Shortly after early modern humans migrated out of Africa, some interbred with Neanderthals, leaving Neanderthal DNA sequences in the genomes of present day non…
- Scientists announce discovery of 3.6 million-year-old relative of 'Lucy'
  Researchers recovered only the second partial skeleton of science’s best known early human ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis.
- Aquatic brain food allowed evolution of human intelligence
  Scientists now know what may have helped fuel the evolution of the human brain two million years ago. Our human ancestors ate a wide variety of animals…
- Co-ordinated Punishment Leads to Increased Co-operation in Large Groups
  Co-operation in large groups is maintained by punishment.
- Neanderthals may have interbred with humans twice
  Extinct human species such as Neanderthals may still be with us, at least in our DNA, and this may help explain why they disappeared from the fossil record…
- New research finds bureaucracy linked to a nation's growth
  Since the bureaucratic state as a political form originally evolved through a process of predatory expansion, we should not be surprised if states continue to…
- Evidence for Darwin's theory of sexual selection
  Sex differences found in humans and many other species, such as the level of parental involvement by males, can be explained by Darwin's sexual selection.
- First studies of fossil of new human ancestor take place at the European Synchrotron
  ESRF synchrotron lets scientists to visualize the inside of a fossil block, sometimes up to the micron scale without breaking it open, with contrast, sensitivit…
- Ancient Americans took cold snap in their stride
  The Young Dryas age cooling was not as sudden, extensive, or severe as has previously been suggested and the notion that these conditions may have taken the…
- Big Step Towards Humanity around 250,000 Years Ago
  There is a big difference between Lower and Middle Paleolithic social behaviors, but not between Middle and Upper Paleolithic social behaviors.
- New human-like species unveiled
  A. sediba resembles the first recognized australopithecine species A. africanus (which lived about 2.5 million years ago), in its ape-sized brain and ape-like…
- New research reconstructs ancient history of Island Southeast Asia
  In Island Southeast Asia, genes, languages and material culture, including agriculture, did not all spread together through migration. Instead, the region was…
- New hominid shares traits with Homo species
  Two Australopithecus sediba, an adult female and a juvenile male, were found close together in a portion of the cave system that had been protected from…
- Stone Age Scandinavians unable to digest milk
  The hunter gatherers who inhabited the southern coast of Scandinavia 4,000 years ago were lactose intolerant. This has been shown by a new study carried out by…
- Cro Magnon skull shows that our brains have shrunk
  Previous studies have found a small relationship between brain size and intelligence, but many other factors affect brain intelligence. Different parts of the…
- Common Ancestor More Human Than Chimp Like?
  Based on Ardi’s anatomy, chimpanzees may have evolved more than humans—they changed more over the past 7 million years. Ardi was 120 cm tall and…
- Does Civilization Speed up Evolution?
  Using a computer simulation, they tested what would have happened if humans had evolved at the same modern rate since we diverged from a common ancestral ape 6…
- Gracilization: evidence of humans domesticating themselves
  The fossil record and contemporary breeding experiments alike confirm that domestication, whether accidental -- as in the evolution of the dog from the wolf --…
- Mothers and Others
  Human sociality did not arise out of warfare.
- Talking as Social Grooming in Humans
  Language evolved so that we could gossip. Talking replaced the social grooming of primates like chimpanzees
- Our Relatives, the Pigmy Chimps
  Pigmy chimpanzees are possibly more closely related to us than ordinary chimps, sharing 98.4 percent of their DNA with us
- Human Lead Pollution
  Tests in the ice cores from Greenland show up ancient metal production
- H P Lovecraft
  We are rousing, humans. You had your chance and failed. It is our turn again?
- Mysterious Memories?
  Why are we perpetually interested in the dinosaurs?
- The Dinosaur Heritage and the Divided Brain
  Has the right brain all the while been trying to warn us against the monster taking over?
- No Compunction—No Surrender
  In human society, passing the buck to those lower in the hierarchy, and the intervention of technology, allows fighting to be done at a distance
- Unreasoning Obedience
  By yielding to authority we can absolve ourselves of guilt
- Learned Helplessness
  Life mainly concerned with its own maintenance is inhuman
- Components of the Dinosaur Heritage Syndrome
  Examining the Dinosaur Heritage syndrome
- The Decay of a City
  Civilization is skin deep. Almost everything that we make in the modern world will disappear into dust or rust in a thousand years. In 65,000 times that…
- Our Hubris?
  Lovelock and Allaby assure us, "Our power to destroy the world, or even ourselves, is quite imaginary, a product of our hubris". So we are all right then!
- Genes and the Human Brain
  Our brains have overshot their optimum size. If a mutations leads to us being able to use the excess, then future evolution cannot be expected to be slow
- Where and When was the Human Aquatic Period
  Where and when did the ape become aquatic?
- All the Dinosaurs that Lived
  Millions of species of dinosaur lived that we know nothing about, and warm blooded species die out faster than cold blooded ones. Maybe intelligent ones die…
- Hunting
  Some think aspects of hunting contributed to our growth in intellect
- Cooperation
  Humans were social animals but cooperation was much strengthened in the sociability promoted through gathering, an activity of the women and children
- Breast Feeding and Pregnancy
  Suckling was important in delaying further pregnancy leaving mothers with fewer children and more time to each child
- Long Childhood
  Parental care and a long childhood seem important in the evolution of intelligence but human hunter gatherers scarcely differ from apes in this respect
- Speech
  Speech is important to human society, but evolved too late to havebeen important in the evolution of intelligence. Rather it is a sign of it
- Brain to Body Ratio
  Is brain to body ratio a better criterion of intelligence than simple brain size?
- Brain Size
  Brain size seems obviously correlated with intelligence but quite how is not so obvious
- Bipedalism
  The importance to the evolution of intelligence of being hands free
- Characteristics of Humanity
  What is it to be human? The elementary list of necessary features for intelligence.
- The Scarcity of Human Remains
  The scarcity of human remains compared with dinosaur remains
- The Exponential Rise of Homo
  How Homo sapiens rose from an ape to a plague on the earth
- Dating the Split of Humans and Apes
  Mankind's ancestors and rivals, and how Herpes helps us know when we split from the ape line
- The Evolution of Apes
  The evolution and origins of apes, and the qualities that helped them, then humans to succeed
- Primates
  Primates are obviously the first, and therefore most important, of the classes of animals, because we are in it
- Lucy: Australopithecus Afarensis
  How Lucy, the Australopithecine skeleton was missed by some experts, then discovered, almost by accident
- Who Lies Sleeping? Home
  Contents and menu of Who Lies Sleeping? The book uses paleontological evidence to suggest a reptoid race actually evolved in the Cretaceous age and destroyed…
Primates (5)
- First clear evidence of feasting in early humans
  People around the time of this feast were intensively using the plants and animals that their descendants later domesticated. The combination of increased…
- Scientists discover oldest evidence of stone tool use and meat-eating among human ancestors
  Human ancestors were using stone tools and consuming meat from large mammals nearly million years earlier than previously thought.
- Scientists announce discovery of 3.6 million-year-old relative of 'Lucy'
  Researchers recovered only the second partial skeleton of science’s best known early human ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis.
- Discovery of a primate more than 11 million years old
  Characteristics derived from the dentition suggest that these animals are a clade, a monophyletic group, which, based on an African ancestor that migrated to…
- New human-like species unveiled
  A. sediba resembles the first recognized australopithecine species A. africanus (which lived about 2.5 million years ago), in its ape-sized brain and ape-like…
Intelligence (11)
- First clear evidence of feasting in early humans
  People around the time of this feast were intensively using the plants and animals that their descendants later domesticated. The combination of increased…
- Scientists discover oldest evidence of stone tool use and meat-eating among human ancestors
  Human ancestors were using stone tools and consuming meat from large mammals nearly million years earlier than previously thought.
- Co-ordinated Punishment Leads to Increased Co-operation in Large Groups
  Co-operation in large groups is maintained by punishment.
- Neanderthals may have interbred with humans twice
  Extinct human species such as Neanderthals may still be with us, at least in our DNA, and this may help explain why they disappeared from the fossil record…
- New research finds bureaucracy linked to a nation's growth
  Since the bureaucratic state as a political form originally evolved through a process of predatory expansion, we should not be surprised if states continue to…
- The Dinosauroid: A Humanoid Dinosaur
  Dale Russell's dinosauroid was a serious scientific speculation, but not a testable hypothesis, and was never claimed to have been.
- Learned Helplessness
  Life mainly concerned with its own maintenance is inhuman
- Components of the Dinosaur Heritage Syndrome
  Examining the Dinosaur Heritage syndrome
- What is the Dinosaur Heritage? 2
  We have a very odd civilization indeed!
- What is the Dinosaur Heritage? 1
  Do we suffer from the same affliction as the anthroposaurs and perhaps all intelligent life forms—some self-destructive syndrome that is a sine qua non…
- EQ, the Encephalization Quotient
  The EQ measures relative brain power compared with size for a group of animals. Those with an EQ greater than 1 are getting more intelligent than the average
Convergence (23)
- New Ideas about 85-million-year-old sea monster: Mosasaur
  Advanced, shark like swimming began in mosasaurs millions of years earlier than we previously thought.
- Reproductive Isolation and Speciation
  Animals that cannot breed together are different species, but so too are animals that can interbreed but never meet in the wild
- Warm-blooded sea reptiles of the Jurassic
  Reptiles roaming the oceans at the time of the dinosaurs were warm blooded. They could maintain a constant body temperature well above that of the surrounding…
- Colossal squid joins Museum tour
  A colossal squid has joined the giant squid, caught in 2005 off the South Georgia islands in the South Atlantic, as one of the exhibits in the Natural History…
- EQ, the Encephalization Quotient
  The EQ measures relative brain power compared with size for a group of animals. Those with an EQ greater than 1 are getting more intelligent than the average
- Where and When was the Human Aquatic Period
  Where and when did the ape become aquatic?
- Locomotor Sophistication
  To be able to think in 3D needs a 3D environment, that is motion in three dimensions—an aqueous environment offers it, as does a life in the trees, but…
- The Diving Reflex
  The diving reflex is an adaptation for, er… diving, something that land animals do not habitually do
- More Adaptations to Water
  Curious features of Homo sapiens that other apes lack can be explained as adaptations to water
- Hairlessness
  Hair is not an advantage in water, and aquatic animals usually lose it
- Neoteny
  Human beings are the neotenous ape, we retain infantile features into adult life
- The Aquatic Ape
  Elaine Morgan presents an excellent case for an aquatic phase of human evolution, but the experts ignore her
- Submergence Convergence: The Aquatic Ape
  Water imposes its own evolutionary constraints, yet creatures have often returned there. Did an ape?
- The Driving Forces of Evolution
  How evolution occurs
- The Epigenetic Landscape
  C H Waddington described an epigenetic landscape to visualize the paths of evolution
- Convergence in RNA Solutions
  Convergence has even been demonstrated in a test tube of nutrients, enzymes and RNA
- Anteaters and Ants
  Convergence in anteaters, and ants and termites
- Less Specialised Examples of Convergence
  The general features of animals, in common or similar environments, can also evolve convergently
- Convergent Evolution in Electric Fish
  Electric fish evolved an electromagnetic system of "seeing", and perhaps communicating in muddy water
- Echolocation in Bats and Whales
  Echolocation in bats as an example of the sophistication of evolution, and yet it is also an example of multiple convergence
- Convergent and Parallel Evolution
  If a design principle is good enough to be used once in evolution it is good enough to be used twice—though not in exactly the same way.
- Dollo’s Law
  The Church justified its resistance to the idea of evolution in the 18th and 19th Centuries by quoting Ecclesiastes 3:14: I know that everything God does…
- Who Lies Sleeping? Home
  Contents and menu of Who Lies Sleeping? The book uses paleontological evidence to suggest a reptoid race actually evolved in the Cretaceous age and destroyed…
Evolution (37)
- First clear evidence of feasting in early humans
  People around the time of this feast were intensively using the plants and animals that their descendants later domesticated. The combination of increased…
- Natural Selection Alone can Explain Eusociality
  Straightforward natural selection theory alone can explain the evolution of eusocial behavior, without the need for kin selection theory.
- New Ideas about 85-million-year-old sea monster: Mosasaur
  Advanced, shark like swimming began in mosasaurs millions of years earlier than we previously thought.
- An Evolutionary Arms Race
  Competition between species and especially predation is a factor in evolution. It leads to evolutionary arms races, and one such is for selection of intelligenc…
- Complete Neanderthal genome yields insights into human evolution and evidence of interbreeding
  Shortly after early modern humans migrated out of Africa, some interbred with Neanderthals, leaving Neanderthal DNA sequences in the genomes of present day non…
- Feathers too weak for early bird flight
  Early birds, Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis, were poor at flying a study of the biomechanics of their feathers shows.
- Scientists announce discovery of 3.6 million-year-old relative of 'Lucy'
  Researchers recovered only the second partial skeleton of science’s best known early human ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis.
- Bird molecules support rapid evolution
  Evolution can happen quickly given the right circumstances, Dr Steve Trewick says, explaining a study of New Zealand»s birds.
- Neanderthals may have interbred with humans twice
  Extinct human species such as Neanderthals may still be with us, at least in our DNA, and this may help explain why they disappeared from the fossil record…
- Evidence for Darwin's theory of sexual selection
  Sex differences found in humans and many other species, such as the level of parental involvement by males, can be explained by Darwin's sexual selection.
- First studies of fossil of new human ancestor take place at the European Synchrotron
  ESRF synchrotron lets scientists to visualize the inside of a fossil block, sometimes up to the micron scale without breaking it open, with contrast, sensitivit…
- Big Step Towards Humanity around 250,000 Years Ago
  There is a big difference between Lower and Middle Paleolithic social behaviors, but not between Middle and Upper Paleolithic social behaviors.
- Form or function? Evolution takes different paths
  Morphological defects are more likely due to problems with gene expression. This knowledge could help identify the disease-causing mutations more quickly,…
- Cro Magnon skull shows that our brains have shrunk
  Previous studies have found a small relationship between brain size and intelligence, but many other factors affect brain intelligence. Different parts of the…
- Common Ancestor More Human Than Chimp Like?
  Based on Ardi’s anatomy, chimpanzees may have evolved more than humans—they changed more over the past 7 million years. Ardi was 120 cm tall and…
- Does Civilization Speed up Evolution?
  Using a computer simulation, they tested what would have happened if humans had evolved at the same modern rate since we diverged from a common ancestral ape 6…
- Dollo’s Law in the War of Science and Religion
  Behe’s argument has no scientific merit. It is not a scientific argument, but mere prejudice and dogma. It is scientific ignorance, based on ignorantly…
- Gracilization: evidence of humans domesticating themselves
  The fossil record and contemporary breeding experiments alike confirm that domestication, whether accidental -- as in the evolution of the dog from the wolf --…
- Mothers and Others
  Human sociality did not arise out of warfare.
- Cairns’ Deciding Experiment
  Bacteria must have access to some reversible process of trial and error
- Bacterial Proof of Directed Evolution
  Bacteria can take the chance out of evolution!
- Evolution is Speeding Up
  The increase in brain size accounts for increasing evolutionary speeds
- An Incest Gene?
  Perhaps an incest gene can permit speciation when it might not be expected and therefore speed up evolution
- Plague Epidemics
  A rapidly mutating piece of code looks as though it switches on occasionally to test the environment
- Reading the Genetic Message
  Many DNA sequences have more than one function
- How Genes can Control Mutation
  Organisms mutate at rates controlled by their own genes
- Directed Evolution?
  Could evolution be directed?
- Atavisms
  Lost features can reappear, albeit rarely, as throwbacks or atavisms
- Mutation
  Beneficial macromutations are, as all agree, rare, but rare is not impossible
- Two Valleys in the Evolutionary Landscape
  The epigenetic landscape allows that a large evolutionary jump could be successful, albeit rarely
- Saltation
  Saltation is macromutation—major changes occur in a single mutation not via the accumulation of many small changes (called micromutation)
- Rapid Evolution
  Evolution can be extraordinarily fast
- Genes and the Human Brain
  Our brains have overshot their optimum size. If a mutations leads to us being able to use the excess, then future evolution cannot be expected to be slow
- Evolution of the Human Penis
  The change from rear copulation to frontal copulation in the upright apes left women feeling dissatisfied by sex, and an inclination to prefer men with larger…
- Polygenes
  Sexual selection and linkage disequilibrium can cause sudden evolutionary spurts
- Sexual Selection
  Sexual selection is a mating game with quite important consequences
- Who Lies Sleeping? Home
  Contents and menu of Who Lies Sleeping? The book uses paleontological evidence to suggest a reptoid race actually evolved in the Cretaceous age and destroyed…
Aquatic Ape (10)
- Aquatic brain food allowed evolution of human intelligence
  Scientists now know what may have helped fuel the evolution of the human brain two million years ago. Our human ancestors ate a wide variety of animals…
- Where and When was the Human Aquatic Period
  Where and when did the ape become aquatic?
- Locomotor Sophistication
  To be able to think in 3D needs a 3D environment, that is motion in three dimensions—an aqueous environment offers it, as does a life in the trees, but…
- The Diving Reflex
  The diving reflex is an adaptation for, er… diving, something that land animals do not habitually do
- More Adaptations to Water
  Curious features of Homo sapiens that other apes lack can be explained as adaptations to water
- Hairlessness
  Hair is not an advantage in water, and aquatic animals usually lose it
- Neoteny
  Human beings are the neotenous ape, we retain infantile features into adult life
- The Aquatic Ape
  Elaine Morgan presents an excellent case for an aquatic phase of human evolution, but the experts ignore her
- Submergence Convergence: The Aquatic Ape
  Water imposes its own evolutionary constraints, yet creatures have often returned there. Did an ape?
- Who Lies Sleeping? Home
  Contents and menu of Who Lies Sleeping? The book uses paleontological evidence to suggest a reptoid race actually evolved in the Cretaceous age and destroyed…
Extinction (8)
- Dinosaurs Destroyed by Multiple Asteroid Impacts and Vulcanism
  Shankar Chatterjee thinks the Chicxulub asteroid and Shiva would have to combine, perhaps with the Deccan Traps eruptions, to induce the global extinction of…
- Study finds Triceratops and Torosaurus were different stages of the same dinosaur
  Study finds Triceratops and Torosaurus were different stages of the same dinosaur.
- What is the Dinosaur Heritage? 2
  We have a very odd civilization indeed!
- What is the Dinosaur Heritage? 1
  Do we suffer from the same affliction as the anthroposaurs and perhaps all intelligent life forms—some self-destructive syndrome that is a sine qua non…
- Age of the Manson Impact Crater
  Core drilling of the crater in 1991-92 resulted in a new dating from melt-precipitated feldspars reported in Science of about 74 million years ago
- Chicxulub and Manson Crater
  A crater in the Yucatan peninsula is the prime candidate.
- All the Dinosaurs that Lived
  Millions of species of dinosaur lived that we know nothing about, and warm blooded species die out faster than cold blooded ones. Maybe intelligent ones die…
- Who Lies Sleeping? Home
  Contents and menu of Who Lies Sleeping? The book uses paleontological evidence to suggest a reptoid race actually evolved in the Cretaceous age and destroyed…
Environment (22)
- 'Stocky dragon' dinosaur terrorized Late Cretaceous Europe
  Paleontologists have discovered that tells us what Late Cretaceous predatory dinosaurs in Europe looked like. It was Balaur bondoc, “stocky dragon”,…
- First clear evidence of feasting in early humans
  People around the time of this feast were intensively using the plants and animals that their descendants later domesticated. The combination of increased…
- Dinosaurs Destroyed by Multiple Asteroid Impacts and Vulcanism
  Shankar Chatterjee thinks the Chicxulub asteroid and Shiva would have to combine, perhaps with the Deccan Traps eruptions, to induce the global extinction of…
- Classic Maya history is embedded in commoners' homes
  Maya in the Classic period (250-900 AD) regularly terminated their homes, razing the walls, burning the floors and placing artifacts and sometimes human…
- Why the Isle of Wight is Dinosaur Island
  Fires and floods raged across the Isle of Wight some 130 million years ago explaining why thousands of tiny dinosaur teeth and bones lie buried alongside the…
- A shrunken giant: Island dino Magyarosaurus was a dwarf, after all
  Sauropod dinosaurs, like the famous Brachiosaurus or Argentinosaurus, are known above all for their enormous size. Yet some of these giants evolved into…
- Retracing the tracks of dinosaurs reveals ecosystem the size of a continent
  The entire western interior of North America was probably once populated by a single community of dinosaurs. According to a statistical analysis of the fossil…
- Ancient Americans took cold snap in their stride
  The Young Dryas age cooling was not as sudden, extensive, or severe as has previously been suggested and the notion that these conditions may have taken the…
- Stone Age Scandinavians unable to digest milk
  The hunter gatherers who inhabited the southern coast of Scandinavia 4,000 years ago were lactose intolerant. This has been shown by a new study carried out by…
- Joint climate science statement
  The scientific evidence which underpins calls for action at Copenhagen is very strong. Without co-ordinated international action on greenhouse gas emissions,…
- Oil Explosion Killed Dinosaurs
  He was searching sediments for cenospheres—microscopic carbon beads regarded as signs of industrial activity—and found them at the end of the age…
- Human Lead Pollution
  Tests in the ice cores from Greenland show up ancient metal production
- The End of Earth’s Summer
  The turn from a benign warm climate to the present cold regime which started about 40 million years ago was caused by the upthrust of the Tibetan plateau
- Mammal-like Reptiles Lived with the Dinosaurs
  Dinosaurs so dominated the landscape in ancient times that they have dominated the minds of Palaeontologists too. Dr Nicholas Fraser explains that now people…
- The Decay of a City
  Civilization is skin deep. Almost everything that we make in the modern world will disappear into dust or rust in a thousand years. In 65,000 times that…
- Our Hubris?
  Lovelock and Allaby assure us, "Our power to destroy the world, or even ourselves, is quite imaginary, a product of our hubris". So we are all right then!
- Parallels Between Nuclear War and An Asteroid Impact
  Luis Alverez, in 1982, drew the parallels between the asteroid collision and a nuclear war
- Nuclear Effects
  If a nuclear war could cause extinctions now, why shouldn’t a nuclear war among anthroposaurs have done the same then?
- Lessons in Extinction Nuclear War
  Any advanced society worth its salt will have discovered the equivalence of matter and energy. Did the anthroposaurs?
- Reduction in Oxygen
  Perhaps reduction in oxygen accompanied atmospheric pollution
- Adaptations to Pollution
  Atmospheric pollution in the late Cretaceous should show up in the fossil record as an adaptation of species to it
- Who Lies Sleeping? Home
  Contents and menu of Who Lies Sleeping? The book uses paleontological evidence to suggest a reptoid race actually evolved in the Cretaceous age and destroyed…
Offsite (38)
- 'Stocky dragon' dinosaur terrorized Late Cretaceous Europe
  Paleontologists have discovered that tells us what Late Cretaceous predatory dinosaurs in Europe looked like. It was Balaur bondoc, “stocky dragon”,…
- First clear evidence of feasting in early humans
  People around the time of this feast were intensively using the plants and animals that their descendants later domesticated. The combination of increased…
- Classic Maya history is embedded in commoners' homes
  Maya in the Classic period (250-900 AD) regularly terminated their homes, razing the walls, burning the floors and placing artifacts and sometimes human…
- Natural Selection Alone can Explain Eusociality
  Straightforward natural selection theory alone can explain the evolution of eusocial behavior, without the need for kin selection theory.
- Why the Isle of Wight is Dinosaur Island
  Fires and floods raged across the Isle of Wight some 130 million years ago explaining why thousands of tiny dinosaur teeth and bones lie buried alongside the…
- New Ideas about 85-million-year-old sea monster: Mosasaur
  Advanced, shark like swimming began in mosasaurs millions of years earlier than we previously thought.
- Scientists discover oldest evidence of stone tool use and meat-eating among human ancestors
  Human ancestors were using stone tools and consuming meat from large mammals nearly million years earlier than previously thought.
- Study finds Triceratops and Torosaurus were different stages of the same dinosaur
  Study finds Triceratops and Torosaurus were different stages of the same dinosaur.
- Complete Neanderthal genome yields insights into human evolution and evidence of interbreeding
  Shortly after early modern humans migrated out of Africa, some interbred with Neanderthals, leaving Neanderthal DNA sequences in the genomes of present day non…
- Feathers too weak for early bird flight
  Early birds, Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis, were poor at flying a study of the biomechanics of their feathers shows.
- Communicating Science to the Public Effectively
  Scientific advances often provoke deep concern on the part of the public, especially when these advances challenge strongly held political or moral perspectives…
- Giant Dinosaurs did not Chew
  Today’s terrestrial animals are nowhere near reaching the Jurassic size record. The reason is that mammals chew, giant dinosaurs gulped.
- Scientists announce discovery of 3.6 million-year-old relative of 'Lucy'
  Researchers recovered only the second partial skeleton of science’s best known early human ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis.
- New Horned Dinosaurs in North America
  Spectacular new horned dinosaurs of two different types have been found in North America.
- Aquatic brain food allowed evolution of human intelligence
  Scientists now know what may have helped fuel the evolution of the human brain two million years ago. Our human ancestors ate a wide variety of animals…
- Some sauropods held their long necks high
  The long necks of sauropod dinosaurs really were held high, in spite of theories suggesting they were more likely to keep their necks low because of the high…
- Warm-blooded sea reptiles of the Jurassic
  Reptiles roaming the oceans at the time of the dinosaurs were warm blooded. They could maintain a constant body temperature well above that of the surrounding…
- X-rays show chemistry of Archaeopteryx transition fossil feathers as bird-like
  The chemical maps show that portions of the Archeopteryx feathers are not merely impressions of long decomposed organic material, as was previously believed,…
- Bird molecules support rapid evolution
  Evolution can happen quickly given the right circumstances, Dr Steve Trewick says, explaining a study of New Zealand»s birds.
- A shrunken giant: Island dino Magyarosaurus was a dwarf, after all
  Sauropod dinosaurs, like the famous Brachiosaurus or Argentinosaurus, are known above all for their enormous size. Yet some of these giants evolved into…
- Co-ordinated Punishment Leads to Increased Co-operation in Large Groups
  Co-operation in large groups is maintained by punishment.
- Feather structures in maturing dinosaurs changed as they grew
  The feather structure of this dinosaur changed quite dramatically as the animals grew older. It was most likely that the animals moulted, replacing their…
- Discovery of a primate more than 11 million years old
  Characteristics derived from the dentition suggest that these animals are a clade, a monophyletic group, which, based on an African ancestor that migrated to…
- Neanderthals may have interbred with humans twice
  Extinct human species such as Neanderthals may still be with us, at least in our DNA, and this may help explain why they disappeared from the fossil record…
- Retracing the tracks of dinosaurs reveals ecosystem the size of a continent
  The entire western interior of North America was probably once populated by a single community of dinosaurs. According to a statistical analysis of the fossil…
- New research finds bureaucracy linked to a nation's growth
  Since the bureaucratic state as a political form originally evolved through a process of predatory expansion, we should not be surprised if states continue to…
- Evidence for Darwin's theory of sexual selection
  Sex differences found in humans and many other species, such as the level of parental involvement by males, can be explained by Darwin's sexual selection.
- First studies of fossil of new human ancestor take place at the European Synchrotron
  ESRF synchrotron lets scientists to visualize the inside of a fossil block, sometimes up to the micron scale without breaking it open, with contrast, sensitivit…
- Ancient Americans took cold snap in their stride
  The Young Dryas age cooling was not as sudden, extensive, or severe as has previously been suggested and the notion that these conditions may have taken the…
- New human-like species unveiled
  A. sediba resembles the first recognized australopithecine species A. africanus (which lived about 2.5 million years ago), in its ape-sized brain and ape-like…
- Danger and adventure in the tale of Dippy
  Dippy is the affectionate nickname given to the 26-metre-long Diplodocus skeleton that dominates the Museum’s Central Hall. The dinosaur is an icon that has…
- Colossal squid joins Museum tour
  A colossal squid has joined the giant squid, caught in 2005 off the South Georgia islands in the South Atlantic, as one of the exhibits in the Natural History…
- New research reconstructs ancient history of Island Southeast Asia
  In Island Southeast Asia, genes, languages and material culture, including agriculture, did not all spread together through migration. Instead, the region was…
- New hominid shares traits with Homo species
  Two Australopithecus sediba, an adult female and a juvenile male, were found close together in a portion of the cave system that had been protected from…
- Form or function? Evolution takes different paths
  Morphological defects are more likely due to problems with gene expression. This knowledge could help identify the disease-causing mutations more quickly,…
- Stone Age Scandinavians unable to digest milk
  The hunter gatherers who inhabited the southern coast of Scandinavia 4,000 years ago were lactose intolerant. This has been shown by a new study carried out by…
- Cro Magnon skull shows that our brains have shrunk
  Previous studies have found a small relationship between brain size and intelligence, but many other factors affect brain intelligence. Different parts of the…
- Joint climate science statement
  The scientific evidence which underpins calls for action at Copenhagen is very strong. Without co-ordinated international action on greenhouse gas emissions,…
News (205)
- 'Stocky dragon' dinosaur terrorized Late Cretaceous Europe
  Paleontologists have discovered that tells us what Late Cretaceous predatory dinosaurs in Europe looked like. It was Balaur bondoc, “stocky dragon”,…
- First clear evidence of feasting in early humans
  People around the time of this feast were intensively using the plants and animals that their descendants later domesticated. The combination of increased…
- Dinosaurs Destroyed by Multiple Asteroid Impacts and Vulcanism
  Shankar Chatterjee thinks the Chicxulub asteroid and Shiva would have to combine, perhaps with the Deccan Traps eruptions, to induce the global extinction of…
- Classic Maya history is embedded in commoners' homes
  Maya in the Classic period (250-900 AD) regularly terminated their homes, razing the walls, burning the floors and placing artifacts and sometimes human…
- Natural Selection Alone can Explain Eusociality
  Straightforward natural selection theory alone can explain the evolution of eusocial behavior, without the need for kin selection theory.
- Why the Isle of Wight is Dinosaur Island
  Fires and floods raged across the Isle of Wight some 130 million years ago explaining why thousands of tiny dinosaur teeth and bones lie buried alongside the…
- New Ideas about 85-million-year-old sea monster: Mosasaur
  Advanced, shark like swimming began in mosasaurs millions of years earlier than we previously thought.
- Menopause
  Has the menopause a role in the evolution of intelligence?
- An Evolutionary Arms Race
  Competition between species and especially predation is a factor in evolution. It leads to evolutionary arms races, and one such is for selection of intelligenc…
- Scientists discover oldest evidence of stone tool use and meat-eating among human ancestors
  Human ancestors were using stone tools and consuming meat from large mammals nearly million years earlier than previously thought.
- Study finds Triceratops and Torosaurus were different stages of the same dinosaur
  Study finds Triceratops and Torosaurus were different stages of the same dinosaur.
- Reproductive Isolation and Speciation
  Animals that cannot breed together are different species, but so too are animals that can interbreed but never meet in the wild
- Complete Neanderthal genome yields insights into human evolution and evidence of interbreeding
  Shortly after early modern humans migrated out of Africa, some interbred with Neanderthals, leaving Neanderthal DNA sequences in the genomes of present day non…
- Feathers too weak for early bird flight
  Early birds, Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis, were poor at flying a study of the biomechanics of their feathers shows.
- Communicating Science to the Public Effectively
  Scientific advances often provoke deep concern on the part of the public, especially when these advances challenge strongly held political or moral perspectives…
- Giant Dinosaurs did not Chew
  Today’s terrestrial animals are nowhere near reaching the Jurassic size record. The reason is that mammals chew, giant dinosaurs gulped.
- Scientists announce discovery of 3.6 million-year-old relative of 'Lucy'
  Researchers recovered only the second partial skeleton of science’s best known early human ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis.
- New Horned Dinosaurs in North America
  Spectacular new horned dinosaurs of two different types have been found in North America.
- Aquatic brain food allowed evolution of human intelligence
  Scientists now know what may have helped fuel the evolution of the human brain two million years ago. Our human ancestors ate a wide variety of animals…
- Some sauropods held their long necks high
  The long necks of sauropod dinosaurs really were held high, in spite of theories suggesting they were more likely to keep their necks low because of the high…
- Warm-blooded sea reptiles of the Jurassic
  Reptiles roaming the oceans at the time of the dinosaurs were warm blooded. They could maintain a constant body temperature well above that of the surrounding…
- X-rays show chemistry of Archaeopteryx transition fossil feathers as bird-like
  The chemical maps show that portions of the Archeopteryx feathers are not merely impressions of long decomposed organic material, as was previously believed,…
- Bird molecules support rapid evolution
  Evolution can happen quickly given the right circumstances, Dr Steve Trewick says, explaining a study of New Zealand»s birds.
- A shrunken giant: Island dino Magyarosaurus was a dwarf, after all
  Sauropod dinosaurs, like the famous Brachiosaurus or Argentinosaurus, are known above all for their enormous size. Yet some of these giants evolved into…
- Co-ordinated Punishment Leads to Increased Co-operation in Large Groups
  Co-operation in large groups is maintained by punishment.
- Feather structures in maturing dinosaurs changed as they grew
  The feather structure of this dinosaur changed quite dramatically as the animals grew older. It was most likely that the animals moulted, replacing their…
- Should Experts be Humble?
  Experts need the humility to realize that their knowledge is always partial. Total confidence is unwarranted except in some mature subjects.
- Discovery of a primate more than 11 million years old
  Characteristics derived from the dentition suggest that these animals are a clade, a monophyletic group, which, based on an African ancestor that migrated to…
- Neanderthals may have interbred with humans twice
  Extinct human species such as Neanderthals may still be with us, at least in our DNA, and this may help explain why they disappeared from the fossil record…
- Retracing the tracks of dinosaurs reveals ecosystem the size of a continent
  The entire western interior of North America was probably once populated by a single community of dinosaurs. According to a statistical analysis of the fossil…
- New research finds bureaucracy linked to a nation's growth
  Since the bureaucratic state as a political form originally evolved through a process of predatory expansion, we should not be surprised if states continue to…
- Dinosaurs and Birds
  Archeopteryx was a species that looked like a theropod but had flight feathers, and so looked like a primitive bird. Birds are now considered to be flying…
- Evidence for Darwin's theory of sexual selection
  Sex differences found in humans and many other species, such as the level of parental involvement by males, can be explained by Darwin's sexual selection.
- Dinosaurs Cold-Blooded?
  Scientific speculation is disdained by the authorities, yet all science needs speculation to progress. A hypothesis is a speculation.
- First studies of fossil of new human ancestor take place at the European Synchrotron
  ESRF synchrotron lets scientists to visualize the inside of a fossil block, sometimes up to the micron scale without breaking it open, with contrast, sensitivit…
- The Dinosauroid: A Humanoid Dinosaur
  Dale Russell's dinosauroid was a serious scientific speculation, but not a testable hypothesis, and was never claimed to have been.
- Ancient Americans took cold snap in their stride
  The Young Dryas age cooling was not as sudden, extensive, or severe as has previously been suggested and the notion that these conditions may have taken the…
- Big Step Towards Humanity around 250,000 Years Ago
  There is a big difference between Lower and Middle Paleolithic social behaviors, but not between Middle and Upper Paleolithic social behaviors.
- New human-like species unveiled
  A. sediba resembles the first recognized australopithecine species A. africanus (which lived about 2.5 million years ago), in its ape-sized brain and ape-like…
- Danger and adventure in the tale of Dippy
  Dippy is the affectionate nickname given to the 26-metre-long Diplodocus skeleton that dominates the Museum’s Central Hall. The dinosaur is an icon that has…
- Colossal squid joins Museum tour
  A colossal squid has joined the giant squid, caught in 2005 off the South Georgia islands in the South Atlantic, as one of the exhibits in the Natural History…
- Wikipedia on “Reptilian Humanoid”
  Wikipedia, the amateur online encyclopedia, has a reference—in its item sub voce Reptilian Humanoid—to Darren Naish’s blogged critique of Who…
- New research reconstructs ancient history of Island Southeast Asia
  In Island Southeast Asia, genes, languages and material culture, including agriculture, did not all spread together through migration. Instead, the region was…
- New hominid shares traits with Homo species
  Two Australopithecus sediba, an adult female and a juvenile male, were found close together in a portion of the cave system that had been protected from…
- Form or function? Evolution takes different paths
  Morphological defects are more likely due to problems with gene expression. This knowledge could help identify the disease-causing mutations more quickly,…
- Stone Age Scandinavians unable to digest milk
  The hunter gatherers who inhabited the southern coast of Scandinavia 4,000 years ago were lactose intolerant. This has been shown by a new study carried out by…
- Cro Magnon skull shows that our brains have shrunk
  Previous studies have found a small relationship between brain size and intelligence, but many other factors affect brain intelligence. Different parts of the…
- Who Lies Sleeping? Impossible to Find—Illogical Contraption
  Naish calls attention to another, far more obscure book and writer—Mike Magee and his paranoid 1993 psuedoscience rant Who Lies Sleeping?
- Joint climate science statement
  The scientific evidence which underpins calls for action at Copenhagen is very strong. Without co-ordinated international action on greenhouse gas emissions,…
- Common Ancestor More Human Than Chimp Like?
  Based on Ardi’s anatomy, chimpanzees may have evolved more than humans—they changed more over the past 7 million years. Ardi was 120 cm tall and…
- Does Civilization Speed up Evolution?
  Using a computer simulation, they tested what would have happened if humans had evolved at the same modern rate since we diverged from a common ancestral ape 6…
- Dollo’s Law in the War of Science and Religion
  Behe’s argument has no scientific merit. It is not a scientific argument, but mere prejudice and dogma. It is scientific ignorance, based on ignorantly…
- Gracilization: evidence of humans domesticating themselves
  The fossil record and contemporary breeding experiments alike confirm that domestication, whether accidental -- as in the evolution of the dog from the wolf --…
- Mothers and Others
  Human sociality did not arise out of warfare.
- More Clever Birds!
  A large number of studies on both corvids and apes, and have found that the crow’s performance is on a par with or better than apes’.
- Crows as Clever as Great Apes
  Western scrub jays are able to second guess another’s intentions, they have a theory of mind.
- What if the Asteroid had Missed?
  "If it’s such a good solution for us, is it so difficult to imagine it could be a good solution for a dinosaur, therefore a “dinosauroid”?"
- Oil Explosion Killed Dinosaurs
  He was searching sediments for cenospheres—microscopic carbon beads regarded as signs of industrial activity—and found them at the end of the age…
- In Praise of Scientific Heresy
  "We have to think the unthinkable to take science forward, even if it annoys the establishment."
- In Error—Mammoths
  Mammoths possibly only died out in historical times
- Talking as Social Grooming in Humans
  Language evolved so that we could gossip. Talking replaced the social grooming of primates like chimpanzees
- Intelligence in Animals
  Some animals seem to know the medicinal or pesticidal properties of some plants
- Our Relatives, the Pigmy Chimps
  Pigmy chimpanzees are possibly more closely related to us than ordinary chimps, sharing 98.4 percent of their DNA with us
- Human Lead Pollution
  Tests in the ice cores from Greenland show up ancient metal production
- The End of Earth’s Summer
  The turn from a benign warm climate to the present cold regime which started about 40 million years ago was caused by the upthrust of the Tibetan plateau
- Mammal-like Reptiles Lived with the Dinosaurs
  Dinosaurs so dominated the landscape in ancient times that they have dominated the minds of Palaeontologists too. Dr Nicholas Fraser explains that now people…
- H P Lovecraft
  We are rousing, humans. You had your chance and failed. It is our turn again?
- Mysterious Memories?
  Why are we perpetually interested in the dinosaurs?
- The Dinosaur Heritage and the Divided Brain
  Has the right brain all the while been trying to warn us against the monster taking over?
- No Compunction—No Surrender
  In human society, passing the buck to those lower in the hierarchy, and the intervention of technology, allows fighting to be done at a distance
- Unreasoning Obedience
  By yielding to authority we can absolve ourselves of guilt
- Learned Helplessness
  Life mainly concerned with its own maintenance is inhuman
- Components of the Dinosaur Heritage Syndrome
  Examining the Dinosaur Heritage syndrome
- What is the Dinosaur Heritage? 2
  We have a very odd civilization indeed!
- What is the Dinosaur Heritage? 1
  Do we suffer from the same affliction as the anthroposaurs and perhaps all intelligent life forms—some self-destructive syndrome that is a sine qua non…
- The Decay of a City
  Civilization is skin deep. Almost everything that we make in the modern world will disappear into dust or rust in a thousand years. In 65,000 times that…
- Our Hubris?
  Lovelock and Allaby assure us, "Our power to destroy the world, or even ourselves, is quite imaginary, a product of our hubris". So we are all right then!
- Parallels Between Nuclear War and An Asteroid Impact
  Luis Alverez, in 1982, drew the parallels between the asteroid collision and a nuclear war
- Nuclear Effects
  If a nuclear war could cause extinctions now, why shouldn’t a nuclear war among anthroposaurs have done the same then?
- Lessons in Extinction Nuclear War
  Any advanced society worth its salt will have discovered the equivalence of matter and energy. Did the anthroposaurs?
- Reduction in Oxygen
  Perhaps reduction in oxygen accompanied atmospheric pollution
- Adaptations to Pollution
  Atmospheric pollution in the late Cretaceous should show up in the fossil record as an adaptation of species to it
- Parallels with the Cretaceous
  The fall in variation of the hadrosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous might indicate they were herded
- The Greenhouse Effect
  The release of bound carbon is building up carbon dioxide in the air at the same rate as the burning of fossil fuels
- Chemical Pollution and Entropy
  Entropy is chemical pollution
- Heavy Metals and Entropy
  Entropy is pollution by heavy metals
- Pollution and Entropy
  Pollution is a symptom of increasing entropy, a scientific measure of disorder
- Imbalance of Biomass
  What we see is a reduction of species variety together with an increase in actual numbers of some animals. That is just what happened at the end of the…
- Rates of Extinction
  Humans have exterminated many varieties of animals and birds, though some of them, like the bison, existed in vast numbers
- Intellectual Rivals to Humans
  The prehistory of mankind has many examples of apparently unnecessary killing
- Intelligence and Extinction
  We have murdered our intellectual rivals.
- Changing Causes
  Dinosaurs were already virtually extinct and had been in decline for five million years before the supposed fall of the asteroid.
- Age of the Manson Impact Crater
  Core drilling of the crater in 1991-92 resulted in a new dating from melt-precipitated feldspars reported in Science of about 74 million years ago
- Features of the KT Breccia Layer
  The breccia layer associated with the impact in Yucatan might have other explanations
- Volcanic Activity?
  Careful testing of the iridium layer showed that the iridium concentration seemed to build up slowly during the last few thousand years prior to the supposed…
- Doubts about an Impact
  A fall in sea level draining the shallow continental seas could have triggered the mass extinctions
- Jeff Poling on the Asteroid Impact
  The fossil record showed that the impact event caused an unusually high number of extinctions in North America
- Chicxulub and Manson Crater
  A crater in the Yucatan peninsula is the prime candidate.
- Some Candidates
  The Apollo class of asteroids are prime candidates. But where is the crater?
- Analysis of the K-T Clay Layer
  Tektites and meteoric materials confirmed that a massive meteorite, the size of an asteroid, had shaken the earth.
- How are the Mighty Fallen? An Impact?
  One explanation of dinosaur extinction it is claimed can take in all the feasible theories so far reviewed—an asteroid of exceptional size hit the earth
- The Antarctic Continent
  The cooling of the oceans as Antarctica passes over the South Pole has brought the risk of a freeze up within the bounds of possibility
- Ice Ages
  At the time of the dinosaur extinctions no continent was at a pole, though Antarctica and Australia were near the South Pole
- How are the Mighty Fallen? Cold?
  Were the dinosaurs destroyed by cooling?
- How are the Mighty Fallen? Radiation from Space?
  Another group of theories blame the extinctions on an increase in radiation from space
- How are the Mighty Fallen? Temperature?
  Heating by the greenhouse effect is a likely cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs and would also have affected many other species
- How are the Mighty Fallen? Theories
  Lack of oxygen disadvantaged reptiles less than it did mammals, therefore the reptiles dominated
- Genera Surviving the Late Cretaceous
  Cretaceous extinctions—not all living things were equally affected
- How are the Mighty Fallen
  The extinction of the dinosaurs—the greatest of all titillating puzzles
- Metallic Object in Solid Rock
  They offer a detailed record of a strange race of beings of an alien culture
- Odder Oddities
  Science often progresses by looking at oddities, apparent violations of received knowledge. Yet much of this is ignored.
- Impossible Fossil Footprints
  If the tracks are accepted as human, then scientists will be forced either to place man back in time to the Cretaceous period or to bring the dinosaurs forward…
- Curious Traces Found in Rocks
  Prior civilizations are buried so deeply within the lower strata of the earth that we simply do not have any archaeological evidence of their existence.
- Cairns’ Deciding Experiment
  Bacteria must have access to some reversible process of trial and error
- Bacterial Proof of Directed Evolution
  Bacteria can take the chance out of evolution!
- Evolution is Speeding Up
  The increase in brain size accounts for increasing evolutionary speeds
- An Incest Gene?
  Perhaps an incest gene can permit speciation when it might not be expected and therefore speed up evolution
- Plague Epidemics
  A rapidly mutating piece of code looks as though it switches on occasionally to test the environment
- Reading the Genetic Message
  Many DNA sequences have more than one function
- How Genes can Control Mutation
  Organisms mutate at rates controlled by their own genes
- Directed Evolution?
  Could evolution be directed?
- Atavisms
  Lost features can reappear, albeit rarely, as throwbacks or atavisms
- Mutation
  Beneficial macromutations are, as all agree, rare, but rare is not impossible
- Two Valleys in the Evolutionary Landscape
  The epigenetic landscape allows that a large evolutionary jump could be successful, albeit rarely
- Saltation
  Saltation is macromutation—major changes occur in a single mutation not via the accumulation of many small changes (called micromutation)
- Rapid Evolution
  Evolution can be extraordinarily fast
- Genes and the Human Brain
  Our brains have overshot their optimum size. If a mutations leads to us being able to use the excess, then future evolution cannot be expected to be slow
- Evolution of the Human Penis
  The change from rear copulation to frontal copulation in the upright apes left women feeling dissatisfied by sex, and an inclination to prefer men with larger…
- Polygenes
  Sexual selection and linkage disequilibrium can cause sudden evolutionary spurts
- Sexual Selection
  Sexual selection is a mating game with quite important consequences
- EQ, the Encephalization Quotient
  The EQ measures relative brain power compared with size for a group of animals. Those with an EQ greater than 1 are getting more intelligent than the average
- Where and When was the Human Aquatic Period
  Where and when did the ape become aquatic?
- Locomotor Sophistication
  To be able to think in 3D needs a 3D environment, that is motion in three dimensions—an aqueous environment offers it, as does a life in the trees, but…
- The Diving Reflex
  The diving reflex is an adaptation for, er… diving, something that land animals do not habitually do
- More Adaptations to Water
  Curious features of Homo sapiens that other apes lack can be explained as adaptations to water
- Hairlessness
  Hair is not an advantage in water, and aquatic animals usually lose it
- Neoteny
  Human beings are the neotenous ape, we retain infantile features into adult life
- The Aquatic Ape
  Elaine Morgan presents an excellent case for an aquatic phase of human evolution, but the experts ignore her
- Submergence Convergence: The Aquatic Ape
  Water imposes its own evolutionary constraints, yet creatures have often returned there. Did an ape?
- The Driving Forces of Evolution
  How evolution occurs
- The Epigenetic Landscape
  C H Waddington described an epigenetic landscape to visualize the paths of evolution
- Convergence in RNA Solutions
  Convergence has even been demonstrated in a test tube of nutrients, enzymes and RNA
- Anteaters and Ants
  Convergence in anteaters, and ants and termites
- Less Specialised Examples of Convergence
  The general features of animals, in common or similar environments, can also evolve convergently
- Convergent Evolution in Electric Fish
  Electric fish evolved an electromagnetic system of "seeing", and perhaps communicating in muddy water
- Echolocation in Bats and Whales
  Echolocation in bats as an example of the sophistication of evolution, and yet it is also an example of multiple convergence
- Convergent and Parallel Evolution
  If a design principle is good enough to be used once in evolution it is good enough to be used twice—though not in exactly the same way.
- Dollo’s Law
  The Church justified its resistance to the idea of evolution in the 18th and 19th Centuries by quoting Ecclesiastes 3:14: I know that everything God does…
- All the Dinosaurs that Lived
  Millions of species of dinosaur lived that we know nothing about, and warm blooded species die out faster than cold blooded ones. Maybe intelligent ones die…
- Not True Feathers?
  Some experts thought the feathers of sinosauropteryx were not true feathers, but all the evidence points to warm blood in these comsognathids and dromaeosaurs
- Sinosauropteryx
  Sinosauropteryx seems an important missing link between dinosaurs and birds, having feathers
- Pterosaurs—The Hairy Dragons
  Pterosaurs were diverse and successful animals that occupied the same niche as birds do today.
- Did Dinosaurs have Feathers?
  Feathers or Scales?
- Precursors of the Intelligent Dinosaurs
  Possible precursors of intelligent dinosaurs, and a diagram of dinosaur evolution leading to birds from the same type of precursor
- Dinosaur Parenting
  Hadrosaurs certainly seemed to protect their young in a nest, and the hatchlings grew rapidly
- Pterosaurs as Parents
  But did pterosaurs, like birds, look after their young?
- Live Birth among Dinosaurs?
  The idea of some dinosaurs giving birth to live young is risible. Is it?
- Dinosaur Eggs and Nests
  If we suppose dinosaurs were like birds we should expect them to have laid eggs and had nests
- Parental Care
  Were dinosaurs attentive parents?
- Hunting
  If hunting is an important factor in the rise of intellect, then the predatory carnivorous dinosaurs qualified very well
- Sounds and Speech
  Dinosaurs certainly could hear, and birds and crocodiles, their nearest relatives, make sounds, so it seems dinosaurs must also have been able to communicate…
- Brains
  Birds might be bird brained but can be amazingly intelligent, yet some dinosaurs had brains of the same size to body ratio as birds
- Binocular Vision
  Binocular vision is important if intelligence is to evolve, and the troodon was binocular and had grasping hands!
- Bipedal with Manipulative Hands
  Dinosaurs that were bipedal and with grasping hands were rather common
- But a Thinking Dinosaur?
  Factors that can be examined in dinosaurs that match with the factors for intelligence in hominids
- Hunting
  Some think aspects of hunting contributed to our growth in intellect
- Cooperation
  Humans were social animals but cooperation was much strengthened in the sociability promoted through gathering, an activity of the women and children
- Breast Feeding and Pregnancy
  Suckling was important in delaying further pregnancy leaving mothers with fewer children and more time to each child
- Long Childhood
  Parental care and a long childhood seem important in the evolution of intelligence but human hunter gatherers scarcely differ from apes in this respect
- Speech
  Speech is important to human society, but evolved too late to havebeen important in the evolution of intelligence. Rather it is a sign of it
- Brain to Body Ratio
  Is brain to body ratio a better criterion of intelligence than simple brain size?
- Brain Size
  Brain size seems obviously correlated with intelligence but quite how is not so obvious
- Bipedalism
  The importance to the evolution of intelligence of being hands free
- Characteristics of Humanity
  What is it to be human? The elementary list of necessary features for intelligence.
- The Scarcity of Human Remains
  The scarcity of human remains compared with dinosaur remains
- The Exponential Rise of Homo
  How Homo sapiens rose from an ape to a plague on the earth
- Dating the Split of Humans and Apes
  Mankind's ancestors and rivals, and how Herpes helps us know when we split from the ape line
- The Evolution of Apes
  The evolution and origins of apes, and the qualities that helped them, then humans to succeed
- Primates
  Primates are obviously the first, and therefore most important, of the classes of animals, because we are in it
- Lucy: Australopithecus Afarensis
  How Lucy, the Australopithecine skeleton was missed by some experts, then discovered, almost by accident
- Colour Vision
  Seeing colour is an important quality in animals and birds, but generally it is superior in birds, and might therefore have been in dinosaurs
- Early Birds
  A few of the increasing list of early birds
- Display, Fighting and Flying
  Cowan and Lipps thought birds might have been feathered dinosaurs that used their forelimbs in fighting displays
- Dinosaurs as Birds
  Comparing Dinosaurs with Birds
- Using Parsimony
  Some practical examples of the use of Occam’s Razor
- Occam’s Razor or Parsimony
  Parsimony, parsimonious and Occam’s Razor often appear in books on dinosaurs. What do they mean? Jeff Poling has offered a useful explanation of the…
- The Meaning of Warm and Cold Blood
  Metabolism depends on temperature and thus on the warmth of the blood. Some technical terms explained.
- Dinosaurs Victorious!
  During the Triassic period the confrontation between the mammal-like reptiles and the forerunners of the dinosaurs was head on. In Bakker’s words: A…
- Cold-blooded Qualities Not Enough
  Reptiles survived the extinction, and many species live still, but they do not have the qualities for dominance
- The Emergence of Warm Bloodedness
  How the first hot blooded animals emerged
- Where are Mass Homeotherms Today?
  Ultimately, it seems being hot blooded is superior to being bulky. Being bulky rather than hot blooded is not a survival strategy today
- Mass Homeotherms
  Size was a virtue. Bulky animals do not vary a lot in temperature, but not all dinosaurs were bulky, and some had feathers, a sign of hot blood
- Warm Bloodedness in Dinosaurs
  Considering the big lumbersaurs, the soft parts of dinosaurs and bipedalism
- Dinosaurs Built for Speed
  Various measures show that some dinosaurs were anything but sluggish.
- The Physiology of Dinosaurs
  The young rebels challenged orthodoxy showing from physiology that dinosaurs were not just big lizards.
- Experts and Funding Research
  If a problem has not yet been solved then no one is an expert on it. Rather those who have been working on it a long time are failures. Maybe the funding of…
- The Right to Unorthodoxy
  Crankiness can be very productive. Unorthodoxy is an academic right.
- Who Lies Sleeping? Home
  Contents and menu of Who Lies Sleeping? The book uses paleontological evidence to suggest a reptoid race actually evolved in the Cretaceous age and destroyed…
- A Footprint Expert
  Important human tracks were almost ignored when a footprint expert said they were prints of a horse. Like many ancient finds, they have been destroyed by…
- Experts: All or Nothing at All
  The claim to know it all, but often know nothing. Some failures of overconfident experts.
- Some Experts in Paleontology
  The authorities continued to get it wrong while the amateurs made the discoveries!
- Pillars of Stratigraphy
  Cuvier and Smith saw that rocks were laid down in layers or strata with fossils in them that could be used to date them.
- Experts and Iconoclasts
  Scientists too often form a mutual protection society to fend off challenges to conventional knowledge. Open mindedness is essential in science, and amateurs…
- A Case of Fossil Forgery?
  Hoyle and Wickramasinghe tried to show the Archeopteryx fossils were frauds, simultaneously attacking Darwinism. While panspermia might have some virtues,…
- Time’s Secrets
  Time holds many secrets, even from not long ago. Very profound truths from very long ago, might defy our belief.
Science (2)
- Natural Selection Alone can Explain Eusociality
  Straightforward natural selection theory alone can explain the evolution of eusocial behavior, without the need for kin selection theory.
- Communicating Science to the Public Effectively
  Scientific advances often provoke deep concern on the part of the public, especially when these advances challenge strongly held political or moral perspectives…

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