Mammalian phylogeny: shaking the tree.

Recent palaeontological discoveries and the correspondence between molecular and morphological results provide fresh insight on the deep structure of mammalian phylogeny. This new wave of research, however, has yet to resolve some important issues.     

Palaeontology: pterosaur embryo from the Early Cretaceous

Dinosaur embryos have been discovered all over the world, but so far no pterosaur embryos have been reported. Here we describe a Chinese fossil from the Early Cretaceous period containing an embryo that is unambiguously a pterosaur. The embryonic skeleton, which is exquisitely preserved in its egg, is associated with eggshell fragments, wing membranes and skin imprints. This discovery confirms that pterosaurs were egg-layers and sheds new light on our understanding of pterosaur development.     

Palaeontology: spider-web silk from the Early Cretaceous

The use of viscid silk in aerial webs as a means to capture prey was a key innovation of araneoid spiders and has contributed largely to their ecological success. Here I describe a single silk thread from a spider's web that bears glue droplets and has been preserved in Lebanese amber from the Early Cretaceous period for about 130 million years. This specimen not only demonstrates the antiquity of viscid silk and of the spider superfamily Araneoidea, but is also some 90 million years older than the oldest viscid spider thread previously reported in Baltic amber from the Eocene epoch.     

哺乳动物克隆的现状和研究进展

 哺乳动物细胞克隆是20世纪末生命科学领域最引人注目的高新技术,该技术对于优良种畜的复制、减少试验用动物数目、动物遗传多样性保存及濒危动物挽救、转基因动物培育等方面具有重要意义。近年来克隆技术发展迅速,多种哺乳动物相继克隆成功,但也存在克隆效率太低、克隆动物表型正常而实质异常的问题。本文详细阐述了克隆效率太低、克隆动物表型正常而实质异常问题,介绍了当前动物克隆技术的发展现状,并对动物克隆涉及的技术进行了总结和概括,着重介绍了卵母细胞的去核方法和重组胚的构建方法。     

Palaeontology: leg feathers in an Early Cretaceous bird

Here we describe a fossil of an enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous period in China that has substantial plumage feathers attached to its upper leg (tibiotarsus). The discovery could be important in view of the relative length and aerodynamic features of these leg feathers compared with those of the small 'four-winged' gliding dinosaur Microraptor and of the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx. They may be remnants of earlier long, aerodynamic leg feathers, in keeping with the hypothesis that birds went through a four-winged stage during the evolution of flight.     

High temperatures in the Late Cretaceous Arctic Ocean

To understand the climate dynamics of the warm, equable greenhouse world of the Late Cretaceous period, it is important to determine polar palaeotemperatures. The early palaeoceanographic history of the Arctic Ocean has, however, remained largely unknown, because the sea floor and underlying deposits are usually inaccessible beneath a cover of floating ice. A shallow piston core taken from a drifting ice island in 1970 fortuitously retrieved unconsolidated Upper Cretaceous organic-rich sediment from Alpha ridge, a submarine elevated feature of probable oceanic origin. A lack of carbonate in the sediments from this core has prevented the use of traditional oxygen-isotope palaeothermometry. Here we determine Arctic palaeotemperatures from these Upper Cretaceous deposits using TEX86, a new palaeothermometer that is based on the composition of membrane lipids derived from a ubiquitous component of marine plankton, Crenarchaeota. From these analyses we infer an average sea surface temperature of approximately 15 degrees C for the Arctic Ocean about 70 million years ago. This calibration point implies an Equator-to-pole gradient in sea surface temperatures of approximately 15 degrees C during this interval and, by extrapolation, we suggest that polar waters were generally warmer than 20 degrees C during the middle Cretaceous (approximately 90 million years ago).     

哺乳动物性别决定机理研究进展

综述了与哺乳动物性别决定有关的6个基因在基因通路中的表达调控及功能,并分析了这些基因之间可能的相互作用机理,为发育生物学、哺乳动物性别决定、性别控制及胚胎鉴定提供一些借鉴.     

松辽盆地东部构造带白垩系沉积特征研究

松辽盆地东部构造带由于受构造抬升运动和构造反转作用影响明显,白垩系盖层沉积厚度较薄局部剥蚀严重,综合石油地质条件较差。随着区内南部榆树断陷、梨树断陷、德惠断陷等一系列断陷油气勘探取得成功以及北部绥化断陷发育良好的生储盖组合,表明松辽盆地东部赋存丰富的油气资源,但目前缺乏对东部构造带白垩系盖层沉积特征和沉积相演化系统而全面的研究,使得东部构造带整体的油气勘探和资源评估存在较大制约。本文主要通过精细的野外剖面测量并结合钻井资料和前人的研究成果,对松辽盆地东部构造带白垩纪时期与五个构造演化阶段相对应的沉积物特征研究,从而全面掌握了东部构造带白垩系沉积特征和沉积相演化规律。     

黄口凹陷的白垩系

依据黄口凹陷３口钻井所提供的古生物资料，结合地层的岩性及电性特征，将凹陷的白垩系自上而下，划分为青山组、分水岭组。并根据其与邻区的对比，认为青山组、分水岭组的时代当为早白垩世。     

Mammal teeth from the Cretaceous of Africa

We report here the discovery of two mammal teeth from the early Cretaceous of Cameroon. These, and some jaw fragments, all from Cameroon, are the only fossil evidence of mammalian evolution from Africa between late Jurassic and Paleocene, a span of at least 85 million years. A triangular upper tooth lacks the principal internal cusp of marsupials and placentals and is therefore of a similar evolutionary grade to most Jurassic and early Cretaceous therian mammals, but more primitive than the metatherian-eutherian grade. Early Cretaceous, or older, therian mammals are now known from all southern continents except Antarctica. The new find from Cameroon is consistent with the hypothesis that marsupials, the dominant living mammals of South America and Australia, were not present on any Gondwana continents until after the early Cretaceous separation of Africa by the opening of the South Atlantic.     

Definitive fossil evidence for the extant avian radiation in the Cretaceous

Long-standing controversy surrounds the question of whether living bird lineages emerged after non-avian dinosaur extinction at the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary or whether these lineages coexisted with other dinosaurs and passed through this mass extinction event. Inferences from biogeography and molecular sequence data (but see ref. 10) project major avian lineages deep into the Cretaceous period, implying their 'mass survival' at the K/T boundary. By contrast, it has been argued that the fossil record refutes this hypothesis, placing a 'big bang' of avian radiation only after the end of the Cretaceous. However, other fossil data--fragmentary bones referred to extant bird lineages--have been considered inconclusive. These data have never been subjected to phylogenetic analysis. Here we identify a rare, partial skeleton from the Maastrichtian of Antarctica as the first Cretaceous fossil definitively placed within the extant bird radiation. Several phylogenetic analyses supported by independent histological data indicate that a new species, Vegavis iaai, is a part of Anseriformes (waterfowl) and is most closely related to Anatidae, which includes true ducks. A minimum of five divergences within Aves before the K/T boundary are inferred from the placement of Vegavis; at least duck, chicken and ratite bird relatives were coextant with non-avian dinosaurs.