Did a Virus Kill The Dinosaurs?

[One-23 Profile]

As far as theories go, it's pretty conclusive that a large asteroid played a significant roll in the extinction of the Dinosaurs during the Cretaceous Period 65.5 million years ago. Could it be just as feasible to take this one step further and add to this that it may well of been an extra terrestrial virus stowaway that was the main culprit of their demise and not the impact. It would answer the questions as to why certain species survived. Could it of been a species specific virus ?, not to dissimilar to what we see today with Avian flu, Swine Flu, Ebola etc.
We all fear a Global Pandemic of some kind and no doubt it will strike us when we are unaware. Just do a quick Google for resurrected viruses and the pages soon pop up and with science playing the creation games we would not stand a chance if one got out into the open.
Any thoughts ?


Astrobiologists Resurrect a 500-Million-Year-Old Gene --New Insights into Evolution

Using a process called paleo-experimental evolution, Georgia Tech researchers have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. This bacterium has now been growing for more than 1,000 generations, giving the scientists a front row seat to observe evolution in action.

“We think that this process will allow us to address several long standing questions in evolutionary and molecular biology,” said Betül Kacar, a NASA astrobiology postdoctoral fellow in Georgia Tech’s NASA Center for Ribosomal Origins and Evolution. “Among them, we want to know if an organism’s history limits its future and if evolution always leads to a single, defined point or whether evolution has multiple solutions to a given problem.” Source http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/20 ... .html#more

[Shendao Profile]

Interesting idea as new studies err on the side of the majority of dinosaurs dying before the KT boundary event. As the flying dinosaurs, that evolved into birds, survived then they could have sped up the distribution of a virus.

What happened to the dinosaurs? For more than 100 million years, they ruled the world. Then, suddenly—poof—about 65 million years ago, they were gone. At least that's the way it looks to most scientists, who blame an asteroid hitting Earth for the ancient beasts' dramatic demise. Some researchers are still skeptical about the asteroid hypothesis, but a new fossil discovery in Montana may lend it new impact.

Full article here http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/case-closed-for-dino-killer.html