You can't do statistics with a sample size of 1. Our success only shows that it's possible, not that our body shape is good for it, let alone that anything would evolve it from a totally different starting point. Martin Chorley, aka the Faceless Man, wanted for multiple counts of murder, fraud and crimes against humanity, has been unmasked and is on the run. Hmm, I guess it depends on the point of the thought experiment. If it's to create a hypothetical species which is merely intelligent and social and evolved from Theropod Dinosaurs then many birds already fulfil those criteria. If it's to create a species which possesses more specific human characteristics such as the ability to create art, use fire, fashion tools, build shelters- perhaps even make use of agriculture, then I'm not convinced that the body shape of an elephant or a crow or a tree kangaroo would cut it (although I believe the ancestors of primates looked a bit like tree kangaroos) Surely you are talking about John C. McLoughlin's SF novel TOOLMAKER KOAN. Though THE HELIX AND THE SWORD was a better book, in IMHO -- that second one being vastly underrated.

This isn't a rhetorical question: why would body mass have anything to do with those bits of brains used for thinking? This series is a constant joy to read….I’ve been looking forward all year to find out what happened next, and the book did not disappoint.”—Genevieve Cogman, author of The Invisible Library Oh - and when I said Spec's birds were lame, I did not have carpos and nerds of paradise in mind, rather things like the tweety-birds. You can opt out of our newsletter at any time and we will delete the information you have given us. An opt out link is included on all our newsletters.Perhaps partly because of this - but partly because of coincidence - two new articles have recently appeared on big-brained hypothetical dinosaurs. The first was by Jeff Hecht: Jeff is best known in the zoological world for the reporting he does in New Scientist on new palaeontological discoveries, but he's best known globally (so I understand) for his writing on lasers and fibre optics. Jeff's new article (Hecht 2007) highlights the fact that, 25 years on, palaeontologists are still interested in the thought experiment initiated by Russell & Séguin (1982), but think that 'Russell's dinosauroid needs updating'. Actually I did something like this myself. Mines more inthe vein of the movie Mimic with humans and dinosaurs living together. Of course I later read your blog about it and it was far more correct than my idea: The Hanging Tree is definitely one of the best in the Grant/Aaronovitch pantheon. There again, so have most of the previous books in the series and the odds are the next one probably will be too. (The Bookbag) Aaronovitch is clearly a very creative writer, as he utilises a huge range of different and fairly unique fantasy elements throughout this book. While there are a large number of wizards, spells and elvish beings throughout the book, the main focus is on the titular rivers of the series. The more common magical beings encountered in this series are the personifications of the various rivers and waterways (current and historical) that flow through and around London. These beings are similar to gods, although the term genius loci may be more appropriate, and have a huge range of powers. These are a really intriguing addition to the book, and it was interesting to see the protagonist attempt to deal and interact with the various river characters, including his girlfriend, Beverly Brooke (yes, the main character of this series is dating a river). There is also a huge range of other genius loci, or similar beings, that are featured within the story, including the mysterious and insane Mr Punch. The magic that the human characters utilise is complex and slightly less ostentatious than some classic pieces of fantasy, but when the master wizards get to work it can be quite impressive. On the other hand, the Great Extinction we've been causing depends more on our voraciousness and wanderlust than high technology -- between forest clearance, ocean "harvesting", and scattering exotic species, we'd be getting into trouble Real Soon Now, even without the CO2 overload.

Having read the papers, I think the evidence that Homo floresiensis is a real species is far better than the evidence that the individuals are stunted abnormalities. I agree that people seem to have developed opinions on this issue based on their personal preferences, but this seems to have afflicted those arguing for microcephaly/cretinism the most. I don't quite understand how this has anything to do with religion, but I'll take your word for it. I am a SF artist who has worked as an illustrator for a for a the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology.When I said I don't even need to research to know where the infuence was from ( and very specifically ) it was because this is the business I'm in, and artist visual memory. Re parrots' brains... yes, their brain-to-body-mass ratios are high, but, well, they're pretty small overall. There's probably an absolute size (or at least number of neurons) as well as relative size needed for intelligence. I mean, put a human brain in something the size of Amphicoelias, and its brain-to-body-mass ratio would be tiny, but it would still be as intelligent as a human.

But the human body shape also differs somewhat from our tree-swinging primate relatives- we are the only living primate which is 100% bipedal for example. These adaptations have developed because of our reliance on tools and it's reliance on tools which has accelerated the evolution of larger brains in human species not vice versa. When I look at Nemo's alternative dinosauroid or the Bioparaptor macloughlini, these to me do not look like animals which rely on tools for survival. Try to picture them, for example, managing a fire, or throwing a spear (or throwing anything). Why would Nemo's dinosauroid even need to evolve tool-use or intelligence to the extent that humans have? It looks pretty fast and has a great big beak and claws with which to hunt its prey. How many Theropods have - or had - a bolt-upright stance when walking on land? Diving birds, like auks, loons, grebes penguins etc., who swim on the water for most of their life and only go on land for brooding, and they usually brood on Islands, steep cliffs or other places hardly accessibly for terrestrial predators. Therizinosaurs might have had a more upright stance than other theropods, but than they were herbivores armed with formidable claws and, to quote Cuvier on the ecologically similar ground sloths, they had neither to pursue nor to run away. So, really, if any pulp authors of the 1930s were in cahoots with the sentient maniraptors in stasis deep below the earth's surface, it was Howard. Maybe that's why he committed suicide... But, on the topic of evolved prehistorics, lest we forget the Mahars, Edgar Rice Burroughs' super-intelligent pterosaurs that spoke telepathically, ate humans, watched gladiatorial theatre, and eliminated the need for male members of their species through artificial insemination. [Also of note, the Weiroo from his book "Out of Time's Abyss" which were bat-like people who appeared to somehow be the next step in human evolution. Don't know how that one worked, but it was cool when you're 12.] Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view.

The judge looked about him. He was sat before the fire naked save for his breeches and his hands rested palm down upon his knees. His eyes were empty slots. None among the company harbored any notion as to what this attitude implied, yet so like an icon was he in his sitting that they grew cautious and spoke with circumspection among themselves as if they would not waken something that had better been left sleeping. Hey Darren. I can understand your argument, but really don't agree! You make a great case for us having a civilisation while being physiologically still like Chimpanzees, like our ancestors were. But we aren't. We are talking convergent evolution here, into a form like modern humans. That is the argument. Following your argument, WE WOULD NOT LOOK LIKE WE DO NOW. But we do. And--I refer to my earlier comment. Troodontids were not birds. They were very bird-like, but they were their own form, and doing very well, while another relative of their's became what we now now as birds. Why would they have evolved to look like birds as we know them? It's wrong! (No offense!) The words lay and lie are similar, but not the same. If you ’ve ever been confused about which word to use and when to use it, you ’re not alone. Here we ’ll look at the differences between the two words, and how to use them correctly, with examples. Lay vs. lie: What’s the difference? I'll name a few animals that have the potential for highly-developed intelligence: corvids and dolphins. Neither one is very ape-like, but both show considerable intellect. A rattling drove of arrows passed through the company and men tottered and dropped from their mounts.

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Aaronovitch deftly balances urban fantasy with the police procedural. As for Grant, he's a wonderful blend of laconic copper and, methodically researching how magic works, full-on nerd. (Crime Scene)