Making Science More Better For You on 09/19/08

Headlines of the day

Brother says he was stabbed over Hot Pocket (South Bend Tribune.com)

Wife and husband charged in brawl at baby shower (The Salt Lake Tribune)
Brawl and Bawl?


Va. town tries to prove existence of 'ghost cats' (AP)
Okay, here's the pitch. I got it. Picture a musical that's a cross between Ghost and Cats. Huge I tell ya.

Looters dig for nickels at crash site (CNN)
About that economic recovery plan...

Does That Phelps Guy Know About This?
It’s All In The Hips: Early Whales Used Well Developed Back Legs For Swimming, Fossils Show

ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2008) — The crashing of the enormous fluked tail on the surface of the ocean is a “calling card” of modern whales. Living whales have no back legs, and their front legs take the form of flippers that allow them to steer. Their special tails provide the powerful thrust necessary to move their huge bulk. Yet this has not always been the case.


Reporting in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, paleontologist Mark D. Uhen of the Alabama Museum of Natural History describes new fossils from Alabama and Mississippi that pinpoint where tail flukes developed in the evolution of whales.

“We know that the earliest whales were four-footed, semi-aquatic animals, and we knew that some later early whales had tail flukes, but we didn’t know exactly when the flukes first arose,” said Uhen. “Now we do.”

The most complete fossil described in the study is a species called Georgiacetus vogtlensis. Although not new to science, the new fossils provide some very significant new information. In particular, previously unknown bones from the tail show that it lacked a tail fluke. On the other hand, it did have large back feet and Uhen suggests that it used them as hydrofoils. Undulating the body in the hip region was the key factor in the evolution of swimming.