After serious thinking johac wrote :

But will they make a movie out of it?


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Dad inspired 'Jurassic Park,' son inspires 'Jurassic Poop'

Book reveals how ancient poop has the inside scoop on US past

November 15th, 2006 -- Twenty-five years ago American entomologist
George Poinar's work on ancient insects in amber inspired Michael
Crichton's futuristic thriller Jurassic Park. Now son Hendrik Poinar's
groundbreaking work has inspired the world's first book on the science
of fossil feces, Jurassic Poop.

The new children's book by Canadian science writer Jacob Berkowitz
reveals that America not only has the world's largest heap of ancient
human leavings but that the study of coprolites, or fossil feces, is
literally re-writing American history, including who attended the first
Thanksgiving.

Developed completely from original scientific sources, Jurassic Poop is
the first comprehensive book on coprolites, full of facts and stories
that are intriguing to readers five to 100.

"When I saw my first coprolite ten years ago, I thought no way, how
could something as soft as poop fossilize?," says Berkowitz. "But
coprolites are found on every continent and from every geological time
period. There's literally tons of fossil poop out there, and it's now
recognized as priceless for helping scientists piece together the puzzle
of ancient life."

Jurassic Poop profiles the work of Hendrik Poinar, a professor at
McMaster University, in Hamilton, Canada. He was the first ever to
extract DNA from ancient feces.

While his father's work in teasing DNA from insects in amber benefited
from the revolutionary genetic technological advances of the 1980s --
particularly the invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to
duplicate and thereby identify DNA fragments -- Hendrik's benefited from
medical advances. The technique used to extract DNA from coprolites uses
a chemical developed for the treatment of diabetes-related complications.

"After being pooh-poohed

Should that not have been poop-pooped?

by scientists for decades, coprolites have now
been shown to be the best source of ancient DNA, better than bones and
teeth," says Berkowitz. Hendrik Poinar is now able to identify not only
a pooper's gender, but also critical genetic information that will help
to uncover the very origins of modern humans.

Berkowitz says coprolites even have something to say about one of the
seminal stories in American history, the arrival of the Mayflower.

The official Mayflower record says that the only animals on board were
two dogs. But in the mid-1990s an archaeological excavation of a 17th
century Boston privy revealed another story. The Mayflower was infested
with at least 20 types of Old World beetles, stow-aways who quickly
called America home -- and do to this day.

Jurassic Poop also reveals that more than 1000 human coprolites have
been collected from Hinds Cave in the Chihuahuan desert in southwest
Texas, making the site the largest human coprolite cache ever found.

The fossilized specimens were deposited by ancient Americans over the
course of about 8000 years. The book notes that these human remains are
about 95-per cent fibre. That's about 15 times the amount of fibre the
average American eats today. Hendrik Poinar is now collaborating with
Vaughn Bryant of Texas A&M University to extract genetic information
from the Hinds Cave coprolites.

Children' book? Heck, I want to read it! Sounds very interesting.

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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-11/mu-dij111506.php

On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 23:46:30 -0800, johac <jhachmann@sbcglobal.com>
wrote in alt.atheism

But will they make a movie out of it?


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Dad inspired 'Jurassic Park,' son inspires 'Jurassic Poop'

Book reveals how ancient poop has the inside scoop on US past

They're fulla *****......


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