Watch the Program
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This one-hour program is divided into six chapters.
Choose any chapter below and select QuickTime or Windows
Media Player to begin viewing the video. If you
experience difficulty viewing, it may be due to high
demand. We regret this and suggest you try back at
another time.
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Program Transcript
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watch chapter 1 in
Quicktime
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FEATHERED DINOSAURS
Liaoning Province in the northeastern corner of China
has produced some of the most spectacular fossils ever
seen, including one that may hold clues to the origin of
flight.
running time 6:30
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watch chapter 2 in
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A PUZZLE
The dinosaur-bird connection first came to light in the
1860's, when quarrymen in Germany discovered a fossil
called Archaeopteryx, a creature with feathered
wings of a bird and the skeleton of a small carnivorous
dinosaur.
running time 8:58
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watch chapter 3 in
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MICRORAPTOR
The discovery in China of Microraptor, a
four-winged feathered dinosaur, reignites a long-running
controversy over how birds evolved flight.
running time 10:10
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watch chapter 4 in
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MODELLING
Two teams take different approaches to creating a
scientifically accurate model of Microraptor, one
using a cast from a single fossil, and the other making
a sculpture based on 16 different specimens.
running time 9:00
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watch chapter 5 in
Quicktime
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WIND TUNNEL
Experts from the American Museum of Natural History,
Harvard, Brown, and MIT fly a model of
Microraptor in a wind tunnel to see how four
wings might have worked.
running time 8:06
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watch chapter 6 in
Quicktime
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AN UNEXPECTED FIND
The wind tunnel experiment suggests that
Microraptor could have formed a useful wing with
its hind limbs in typical dinosaur posture and been a
perfectly capable glider, but its still not clear
whether this was the pathway to flight for birds or a
dead-end experiment in gliding dinosaurs.
running time 7:14
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