97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS"

How do you figure that? If I started to talk about Galileo, wouldn't you assume I was talking about /Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei/ rather than the European satellite navigation system?

Furthermore, does it matter that animals on this planet don't communi- cate with satellites? Now I forgot the original phrase, but I'd pre- fer something like /like a G.P.S. system/ [1] rather than pretend pre- historic animals actually communicated with our current era satellites.

Don't Russia and China already have their system too? And for that matter, doesn't Elon?

It's not like G.P.S. is the only satellite navigation system in the world. It's not 1991 anymore.

Best wishes, and happy satellite navigation!

We aren't talking about which satellite navigation system long-extinct organisms used.

We are talking about ancient animals using something like a compass to find out which way they were going.

Well, so is Darwinism. We don't have to explain where Darwin comes from -- or do we? -- but we don't have an origin point for the /seed of life/ on this planet.

And for that matter, it seems to me we are looking at two or three, maybe more, independent origin of some of the single cell organisms. But that's just me thinking independently, it's not like I'm writing a scientific paper on the subject, so you can dismiss that idea and thump some paper if you prefer.

And while on the subject of life forms, what's with bipedal humanoids? Shouldn't there be more? I mean, convergent evolution is a thing, right? We have all these various branches of animals with four legs.

So why don't we have more with two? What's up with that? Do you have an explanation for that in Darwinism?

Well, well, well, please forgive me for poor textual editing. Let me correct the previous paragraph.

Now I forgot the original phrase, but I'd prefer something like /like a G.P.S. system/ [1] rather than pretend pretend historic animals actually ^^^^^^^ communicated with our current era satellites.

I fixed it for you. I was doubling the word for emphasis.

And it appears my piece of s*it Usenet client didn't warn me about a long line, so let me try again.

Now I forgot the original phrase, but I'd prefer something like /like a G.P.S. system/ [1] rather than pretend pretend historic animals actually ^^^^^^^ communicated with our current era satellites.

I fixed it for you. I was doubling the word for emphasis.

More lame insults. You must be a miserable old git.

If you're so smart, how come you ain't happy?

I'm unhappy because my delay generator has 20 ns p-p jitter. But after I fix that, I'll be happy again.

Hmm, 20 ns is the period of my triggered oscillator...

"The more difficult task of distinguishing between legitimate comment and insult is even further beyond your grasp."

I'm definitely old. When you get around with a stick that you inherited from your wife when she died, you are into old person territory.

Being short with half-wits like you doesn't make me a miserable old git, though you might like to think that. a more rational assessment wouldn't do anything for your self-esteem.

You want to think that I'm unhappy because that provides a less humiliating explanation of why I'm short with you. Nobody else seems to think that I'm depressed. Nobody is worried about any irrational elation either. I can see ways in which my life might be improved, but none seem to be all that easily accessible, and chasing them doesn't look as if it would be all that cost-effective

My delay generator - back in 1988 - used an 800MHz local oscillator. I had ambitions of replacing it with a surface acoustic wave based oscillator. The limit - at that time - was the GaAs digital logic that counted the clock steps. ECLinPS wasn't quite available back then and super-quick FPGA's were still further off.

Using a triggered oscillator is a bad idea. Free-running oscillators can be a lot better behaved, but you do have control both start and stop times, and that does take more work.

You didn't fix anything. Using something like a compass to relate your direction of travel to the local magnetic field is nothing like a global positioning system.

Chipping flint arrow heads out of lumps of hard rock may have the same basic logic as etching transistors into the surface of a lump of single crystal silicon but calling them both "lithography" which is "writing on stone" isn't a helpful observation.

You can speculate all you like, but if you want to imagine two or three independent origins of life you really need to have some kind of explanation for your particular number of independent origins .

An Australian is aware of kangaroos. They aren't remotely humanoid - unlike the great apes - but there clearly are a lot of possible body plans.

Insects have six and spider have eight. Larry Niven's Moties had four arms and two legs, but his explanation wasn't all that plausible.

The varies species of octopus have eight legs, and squid are even better equipped. You problem seems to be simple ignorance.

Why do you have to go there? No way to avoid that?

Yes, I did read about that. Navigation is an interesting subject! In the same literature there is also a lot about who 'discovered' America first, before Columbus I mean.

I seem to have some good orientation somehow Even in huge places like America I never had an orientation problem hiking driving, mountains, oceans, in the wild.. But even in the Netherlands as small kid went far away from home parents would not believe it until I showed them some evidence They were just missing me all day, had a small bike. Same in cities. Maybe I have a bird GPS? Bird brain ? No Or ? I tried that sextant I have to get familiar with it. Do not have a boat ATM but who knows? But that precifellon tramp is killing crews of small boats all the time.. Better stay on land?

Yes, I have GPS and GLONAS (Russian) here on my desktop too.

Earth has a magnetic field. Light is an electromagnetic wave. There is no such thing as an "electromagnetic field".

You don't use an antenna to detect a magnetic field. Something like a compass needle made of iron will do. Birds use magnetite in their brains. There are more complicated 3-axis magnetometers that work electronically.

I'm not sure from whence the idea that the Tupa's crest has anything to do with magnetic field detection. I will only observe that sciencedaily.com seems to thrive on the woo-woo side of human thought. Better clickbait, you know.

But here's my point: You can detect the geomagnetic field in 3 dimensions, sure. And let's say Tupa and modern birds both do. The only information that gives you is, what direction is the magnetic north/south pole from here. It doesn't tell you where you are. It's not like a GPS at all, as has been pointed out. It's just a compass. It does not allow birds or dinosaurs to "fly with precision over long distances"; only to keep flying in a straight line in a given direction.

Can you get the equivalent information from the sun's position, knowing the time of day? Yes.

All birds, T. Rex, velociraptors, kangaroos, Bigfoot...

No, look at he magnetioc curve around earth

No, I don't. This is not academia, and I can make statements, particu- larly with the keyword /seems/, without any scientific backing whatso- ever.

Your move!

And you seem to have a problem of assumption. I mean, I'm not the only one here in sci.electronics.design who has pointed this out, so I guess you already know that.

Well, T. Rex is famous for -- relatively -- small hands, I'm not sure about velociraptors as I've never met one, and I don't know if we call them hands on kangaroos. Bigfoot I've also never met so cannot comment.

Still, this seems rather few, in terms of all the species this planet has to offer. Consider the multitude of birds, none of which have hands, and all the various quadrupeds [1].

Really, shouldn't there be more bipedal humanoids if that's the pinnacle of evolution? I mean, life forms are /meant/ -- according to Darwinism

-- to converge on the most efficient form for survival, and if we are the pinnacle of evolution, why aren't there more humanoids? Where is the competition?

What makes you think that we are the pinnacle of evolution?

Developing reading and writing has allowed us to sort other species into hierarchies, so we may be the first species on this planet that has been at risk of deluding themselves into thinking that they are some kind of apex form of life.

Whales and elephants have both had long distance communication systems for a while. They don't seem to be as good at killing us as we are at killing them, but whales know a lot more about sub-surface ocean currents than we do.

A tool-using ape does seems to have useful options on this planet. One of the reasons that there seems to be only one humanoid species - there used to be more - is that we got mobile enough that we could cross-breed faster than we could evolve sub-species that were well-adapted to a particular set of local conditions.

Your problem seems to be that you can't ask the right questions.

What's with all the hard Darwin fixation? Surely you realise that science too evolves as new things are discovered - e.g. genetics etc Though Origins of Species is a remarkable book for its time. I doubt Darwin would recognise modern evolutionary theory, but after a little thought (scientist that he was) I am confident he would approve :-)