New paper on the fish-tetrapod transition tomorrow!

[Per Ahlberg]

An article from my lab on the fish-tetrapod transition is appearing in Nature tomorrow. Can't say anything more for the moment because of the embargo, but I'll post more tomorrow if I have time.

[SteveF]

Cool.

BTW, how does Nature's advance online publication work? Why do some papers go in there and not others?

[Febble]

*fidgets with excitement*

[SAWells]

*excitement fidgets with Febble*

[SteveF]

Originally Posted by SAWells

*excitement fidgets with Febble*

Steady on!

[Martin.au]

Hey SAWells. You missed an exclamation mark.

*Excitement! Fidgets with Febble*

Fixed it for you.

[SAWells]

Gah, you people.

ETA: or possibly: gah, us people?

[Faid]

http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=13200




.

[SAWells]

We had our weekly lit review yesterday. I didn't find anything directly relevant to my research so instead I told them about the robot monkeys and the amphioxus genome from that week's Nature.

Next week, I am so telling them about the fish-tetrapod transition.

[Per Ahlberg]

BTW, how does Nature's advance online publication work? Why do some papers go in there and not others?

Dunno, I've never been able to figure it out.

[David B]

I look forward to an account of what the paper implies in terms I can understand.

David B

[Ray Moscow]

Cool -- I'll bet it will be a good one.

[Codec]

Looking forward to hopefully another brick in the wall!

[VoxRat]

Hey creationists!
No sense waiting till tomorrow; start criticizing!
After all, the actual data won't make any difference.
Never has.
Never will.

[SteveF]

Originally Posted by VoxRat

Hey creationists!
No sense waiting till tomorrow; start criticizing!
After all, the actual data won't make any difference.
Never has.
Never will.

Well, they did it with the Tiktaalik pelvic fins.

[Ray Moscow]

As Dave is a subscriber to Nature, I think the real question to answer is:

Does Per's team's paper support the Biblical account of the Creation and age of the earth?

If not, it must be wrong or at least highly flawed.

Sorry, Per, but you if you can't get right with God, that's just how it is. We need Godly science, not godless science.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Is this the paper you alluded to privately some months back, Per?

If so, drum roll indeed!

(Though I'm just as in the dark as the rest of you.)

[Martin B]

Well, the paper should actuall be online later today.

Information on the Advance Online Publication stuff can be found here.

[Per Ahlberg]

Is this the paper you alluded to privately some months back, Per?

The very one.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Originally Posted by Martin B

Well, the paper should actuall be online later today.

Information on the Advance Online Publication stuff can be found here.

The AOP page is only listing as far as 22 June at the moment.

By tomorrow morning you guys will be all over it I guess

[ninewands]

I do hope someone will be willing to send me a pdf of the paper in case I can't find a copy around the U ... I just HATE having to wait on the profs to get through their copies first ...

[SteveF]

A story has gone up on the BBC website, but the page itself doesn't seem to be working yet. However, the headline is:

"Scientists identify a 365-million-year-old fossil that helps explain the sequence of events that took early creatures onto land."

and soon it should be available via the main Science/Nature page:

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

[ck1]

Paper is out.

Ventastega curonica and the origin of tetrapod morphology

Per E. Ahlberg1, Jennifer A. Clack2, Ervi macrns Luks caronevic carons3, Henning Blom1 & Ivars Zupincedils caron4

1. Subdepartment of Evolutionary Organismal Biology, Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18A, 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden
2. University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK
3. Department of Geology, University of Latvia, Rainis Blvd 19, Riga LV-1586, Latvia
4. Natural History Museum of Latvia, K. Barona Str. 4, Riga LV-1712, Latvia

The gap in our understanding of the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapod is beginning to close thanks to the discovery of new intermediate forms such as Tiktaalik roseae. Here we narrow it further by presenting the skull, exceptionally preserved braincase, shoulder girdle and partial pelvis of Ventastega curonica from the Late Devonian of Latvia, a transitional intermediate form between the 'elpistostegids' Panderichthys and Tiktaalik and the Devonian tetrapods (limbed vertebrates) Acanthostega and Ichthyostega. Ventastega is the most primitive Devonian tetrapod represented by extensive remains, and casts light on a part of the phylogeny otherwise only represented by fragmentary taxa: it illuminates the origin of principal tetrapod structures and the extent of morphological diversity among the transitional forms.

[BWE]

It's up. Per, interesting! I don't know what you paleo types do to figure out this stuff but if you did, did it have a lateral line? That seems like it might have some drawbacks on land.

According to lead author, Professor Per Ahlberg, from Uppsala University, Sweden, this creature had the head of a tetrapod, an animal adapted to live on land. The body, though, was fish-like but with four primitive flippers.
"From a distance, it would have looked like an alligator. But closer up, you would have noticed a real tail fin at the back end, a gill flap at the side of the head; also lines of pores snaking across head and body.

[RBH]

I am flabbergasted by this from the BBC article:

Scientists are delighted with the quality of these Latvian fossils, saying they are really well preserved. Professor Ahlberg believes it is due to some of the geological characteristics of the area.

"This region has had a very quiet geological history since that time, and as a result the rocks have not been folded or squashed up to form mountains.

"We still find sediments not yet properly turned to rock. These fossils were found in compact, wet sand. It's not sandstone, it's sand; you dig it with a breadknife.

"Once you take it back to the lab very carefully, you can remove the remainder of the sand with brushes and needles. These fossils are fragile but superbly preserved. They are actually three dimensional, not flat. It makes it very easy to interpret the skeleton."

Talk about making life easy for preparators!