Tag Archives: jurassic park

Were Dinosaurs Cold-Blooded or Warm-Blooded? Neither, Study Finds

By Guest PostJuly 15, 2014Nature, Sciencearchaeopteryx, arctic archipelago, astrid slany, blutplaettchen, cold blooded, dinosaurs, earth, felisa smith, hautkreb, jurassic park, krebstherapie, lisburne, long extinct creatures, melanom, metabolism, new mexico, serumprobe, t rex, theory, university of arizona, warm blooded, william bligh

A study that originated in the lab of UA biologist Brian J. Enquist with UA alum John Grady suggests dinosaurs had a metabolism that was neither warm- nor cold-blooded, but somewhere in between.

Dinosaurs dominated the Earth for more than 100 million years, but all that remains today are bones. This has made it difficult to solve a long-standing and contentious puzzle: Were dinosaurs cold-blooded animals that lumbered along or swift warm-blooded creatures like those depicted in “Jurassic Park”? (more…)

Jurassic Park molecules?

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Science3d architectures, alpha helices, amino acids, animal bodies, autoimmune disorders, beta strands, biochemist, biofuels, bundles of protein, burckhard seelig, chains, copies of genes, diversity, dna sequences, early life, earth, enzyme shapes, enzymes, fa an chao, fossil enzymes, gianluigi veglia, helixes, human dna, jurassic park, molecules, NASA, pcr, pieces of rna, sea anemones, sequencing rna, sponges, starfish, symmetric, university of minnesota, useful function, years of evolution

Enzymes evolved in the lab hold commercial and scientific promise

Whether big, small, slimy, or tall, most animal bodies are symmetric.

Except for sea anemones, starfish, sponges, and the like, animals have bilateral, or right-left, symmetry. Us included.

The bilateral body plan became the norm over eons of evolution. But what about molecules? Have any evolved common structures like a body plan? (more…)