The animals were capable of "prokinesis" - the movement of the snout up and down independently from the rest of the skull. This allowed the creature to open its mouth wide to eat large food items, and is considered an advanced characteristic of birds. Yet they also had dinosaur features: long necks and tails, and - unlike any bird living today - stubby forearms that ended in a single, blunt claw.Reporting today in the science journal Nature, Luis Chiappe and researchers from the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and Gorge Washington University, Washington DC, say the fossils revealed an important physical characteristic normally seen only in birds. Meanwhile, the warm-blooded ancestors of birds would have evolved separately, surviving the "dinosaur killer" asteroid which hit the Earth 65 million years ago to become the feathered animals we know today.But the findings in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia were of turkey-sized animals which walked on two legs, and had a number of bird-like features. The UK is rigorous in adhering to all of the international commitments which it enters into in the field of environmental radioactivity," he said..
TWO KEY pieces of evidence have emerged indicating that birds really are descended from dinosaurs. The discovery of skulls of animals about the size of turkeys which lived 70 million years ago in what is now the Gobi Desert provided one key; the other was in Madagascar, where archaeologists found a 65-million-year old fossil of a raven-sized bird with dinosaur-like features. Although the public has generally thought that fossil skeletons such as the famous Archaeopteryx, a 140-million-year old "dinosaur with wings", provided incontrovertible proof that birds evolved from dinosaurs, palaeontologists have been less sure.In recent years, they have suggested that birds and dinosaurs evolved separately, and that the cold-blooded Archaeopteryx, might have been an accident of evolution that later disappeared. The proposed changes would actually lead to a cut in the levels rather than an increase, he said."I share the concern of the Nordic countries for protection of the marine environment. While I appreciate that the detection of any levels of radioactivity can give rise to concern, and there is never room for complacency, it is important to consider the radiological impact. "The Nordic countries will closely follow the development of this issue," it said.Mr Meacher replied that the discharges were not radiologically significant either to humans or to other species. However, much higher levels of radiation are allowed in British seafood.The details were revealed in a written Parliamentary answer to Llew Smith, Labour MP for Blaenau Gwent, who has been campaigning on the issue.Anna Lindh, chair of the Nordic Council of Environment Ministers and environment minister for Sweden, told Mr Meacher in a formal letter that the discharges were polluting some of the world's most valuable fishing grounds. Changes under consultation in Britain could result in even higher discharge levels from Sellafield, she said.According to the Norwegian report, liquid discharges of a substance called Technetium-99 have increased to 50 times their 1994 level, while remaining well inside British safety levels.
In the early 1990s, the waste was held back while a new processing plant was completed.Ms Lindh's letter called for the discharges to be stopped. NUCLEAR waste from Sellafield is polluting Scandinavian lobsters, shrimps and mussels 500 miles away, Nordic ministers have told the British government. In an official complaint to Michael Meacher, the environment minister, they say human health and the environment could be at risk from a 50-fold increase in some discharges over just four years. Their joint demand for cuts in discharges, already rejected by Mr Meacher, follows similar complaints from the Irish government. It also follows a cull last month of seagulls and pigeons in the Sellafield area after their droppings were found to be radioactive.Some of the heaviest concentrations found during investigations by the Norwegian Radiological Protection Board were in the claw and tail muscle of lobsters, parts which are usually eaten.
