Re: Function Talks at Ostrom Symposium

[MKIRKALDY@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/17/99 5:54:18 PM Eastern Standard Time,
th81@umail.umd.edu writes:

>  Alan Brush's talk was familiar to me, since it was very similar to the
stuff
>  he had presented just four weeks earlier in Denver.  An elegant study
>  showing (among other things) how any feather follicle can potentially
>  produce any sort of feather type (which we can demonstrate to a certain
>  degree because the same follicle will produce different feather types in
the
>  same individual at different growth stages, different seasons, etc.). 
Alan also stated that feathers are _not_ modified scales and demonstrated
the stages in feather development.  An interesting point he made was
that if a certain type of feather follicle is transplanted to another part
of the body, it will still produce the original kind of feather.  

>  Phillip Burgess talked about load, energy, and power in the takeoff of
>  _Archaeopteryx_.  
Phillip Burgers (just to be accurate).

>  Oh, yeah, by the way: both I and Phil Currie showed up in tuxes to the
Gala,
>  but Mary forgot her camera.  Maybe at some other event...
Oh, well, I didn't see any cameras at the event anyway.  Tom looked
very GQ, and it was nice to see Phil in something other than a dino t-shirt.
I did take many pictures during the subsequent days, which may make
a fine addition to Mickey's web site.  The lighting at the exhibit wasn't
too good on Saturday night when we went to the afterhours showing,
and the lucite boxes that the fossils are in pose a flash problem.  The
exhibit goes to the Royal Tyrrell Museum after its Yale showing, then
back to China.   

Jim Kirkland, Greg Paul and I went to see the Yale collections on
Monday morning, including seeing _Deinonychus antirrhopus_ and its 
"terrible claw."  Greg also looked at the cast of the _Archaeopteryx_ 
specimen which was supposed to have the hypopubic cup, but didn't 
see any evidence of that.  Fernando Novas was also visiting the collections 
while we were there. 

On the question that John Ostrom asked about why didn't birds lose 
their legs, one answer was that there would have been a lot of broken 
egg shells if they had.  

Mary
mkirkaldy@aol.com