I don’t really know why, but this just struck me as the coolest thing – apparently, actual dinosaur feathers have been found, nicely preserved in amber. Dinosaur feathers!
Wow.
The SDMB fees are well worthwhile.
Awesome! That’s getting shared.
Truely, awesome.
Now I want an amber-with-dinosaur-feathers necklace. 
I don’t understand how they know the feathers came from dinosaurs, and not birds.
Pretty great. Thanks for the link.
They can’t … but there is evidence pointing to it. From the article:
In summary, fossils from dinosaurs do sometimes preserve filament structure, which appears similar to those seen in some of the amber specimins.
ah
mah
gahd
So if they turn out to be dinosaur feathers, will I have to completely scrap my mental picture of dinosaurs as scaly monsters, and try to picture them as adorable feathered friends? Because that’s going to be a really tough transition.
Hm. <mental image of a fluffy T Rex>:dubious::eek: <mind explodes>
Yeah I’m thinking about being chased by an adorable, voracious raptor and it just does not compute.
Cool!
Think about the legs and feet of the ostrich, and then imagine being chased by a terror bird. 
I have pet birds. Having seen a parrot in full on RAR! I’M FURIOUS KILL KILL KILL! rage I have no trouble seeing a distant relationship between T. rex and my cute little birdies.
I’m just glad mine aren’t the size of Jurassic Park velocioraptors.
Well even if it is dinosaur feathers, wouldn’t that just be proof that SOME dinosaurs had feathers, and not necessarily all of them?
The argument is:
1 - “fossils from dinosaurs do sometimes preserve filament structure, which appears similar to those seen in some of the amber specimins.” *
2 - the amber comes from an area that has produced more feathered dinosaur fossils than true bird fossils.**
3 - it is therefore “reasonable to suggest that the protofeather-like specimens are attributable to dinosaurs.”
Proof? No. Suggest? Reasonable. Also Tempting.
- Blogger Ed Young says “We now have enough fossils of feathered dinosaurs to fill entire museums.” His take on the amber is here.
** OK, that comment also came from Ed Young. The Atlantic link in the OP says "Given what we know about the animals that were alive in the area at the time . . . "
The idea that dinosaurs had feathers has been around for some time – and it’s one of those things I really would like to be able to tell my eight year old self, who was pretty intrigued by the idea (still controversial then, I think) that birds are really OMG dinosaurs! --, but I hadn’t known there was so much tangible evidence for this! Thanks for the blog link, Yllaria.
:eek: That has to be about the funniest random observation + cartoon I have seen in a long time … thanks for the link. 
Horsefeathers!
[hijack] Ursula is great. If you haven’t seen her other stuff, it’s well worth the look. She’s also the author of the Diggercomic, which I know some others on the Dope have read and liked. [/hijack]
The boundary between birds and (non-avian) dinosaurs has been getting increasingly…er, fuzzy over the past decade.