Word: shubin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Digging in Madagascar, an international team headed by John Flynn of Chicago's Field Museum has unearthed the fossil jaws of two dinosaurs that appear to be around 230 million years old. "These are either the earliest or among the earliest dinosaurs known," comments University of Pennsylvania paleontologist Neil Shubin. The scientists also found fossils of eight other primitive animals, some of which are a key to the evolution of mammals, which arose at about the same time as the dinosaurs...
Together, the remains open an unprecedented window into a time when nature was setting the stage not only for dinosaurs but also for the age of mammals that followed--and the eventual rise of the human species. Says Shubin: "If you look at the major groups of animals in the world today--mammals, crocodiles, turtles, frogs--most appeared during the Triassic, 220 million to 200 million years ago." With new discoveries making the origin of these groups ever more remote, he adds, "any find dating to this period is clearly very crucial...
...homoeotic homeobox genes, or Hox genes for short -- lay out the embryo from head to tail, controlling everything from the development of limbs and the wiring of the spinal cord to the patterning of the gut and urogenital tracts. "What's amazing," says University of Pennsylvania paleontologist Neil Shubin, "is that evolution of complex structures appears to be controlled by this same small set of genes...