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A new study of one of the earliest feathered dinosaurs suggests it may have had upper and lower sets of wings, much like the biplanes of early aviation.

Today, the biplane is widely considered an old-fashioned rarity.

And the design is no longer seen in birds, though it's not clear if it was a step on the way to modern birds or a dead end, tested by nature and discarded.

The intriguing possibility of a biplane dinosaur -- Microraptor gui -- is suggested by Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University in this week's online issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Microraptor was described by Xing Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2003 as having aerodynamic feathers on both its arms and legs. Xu suggested at the time that it glided, extending its legs backward so its wings were arranged one behind the other, like a dragonfly.

But that would be aerodynamically inefficient for a feathered creature, Chatterjee concluded, noting that the feathers on the legs would not face forward.

Instead, he suggested, the legs of the two-pound creature could have been held below the body in flight, creating two staggered wing sections, the upper one slightly ahead of the lower one.

One other flying dinosaur, Pedopenna, also had feathers on its legs, Chatterjee said, and modern raptors such as falcons have short feathers on their upper legs which reduce air resistance as they fly.

"Aircraft designers have mimicked many of nature's flight 'inventions,' usually inadvertently," Chatterjee wrote. "Now, it seems likely that Microraptor invented the biplane 125 million years before the Wright 1903 Flyer."

Xu, who said a variety of reconstructions have been suggested since the original one, called Chatterjee's proposal "likely," but added that "we really need to work painstakingly to check all details and have an accurate reconstruction, and then we can compare different models in computer or even in wind tunnel, which we are planning to do."

"Microraptor is a critical species in understanding the origin of flight," added Xu, who was not associated with Chatterjee's research team.

Matthew Carrano, curator of dinosaurs at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said the question focuses on what the legs can do, and it's a difficult problem because the fossils are flat and require interpretation as to what they would have looked like in three dimensions.

Carrano, who also was not part of Chatterjee's research team, said this creature was probably a side branch rather than a stage evolution had to pass through on the way to today's birds.

"It's difficult to see how this animal does anything well, it seems so ungainly," Carrano said. "It forces us to think creatively because it's so far off the beaten path."

There are often such experiments that fall by the wayside, he said.

"The important thing is, because we've now got all these feathered dinosaurs to look at, it has kind of opened the gates a bit to speculating about how flight evolved," Carrano said.

Labels: Biology

The two Silicon Valley tech giants said they agreed to share rights to the name and end their legal battle over it.

Cisco - the longtime owner of the name - had earlier said it would share it with Apple as long as the electronics-maker made its iPhone compatible with other companies' products. The settlement addressed that concern, with the two companies pledging to "explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and (business) communications."

Other terms were confidential.

Since the full deal was not made public, it's hard to say for sure which company came out on top, says tech analyst Roger Kay with Endpoint Technologies Associates. But it sure looks like a "face-saving" agreement for Cisco, he says.

"It looks like Cisco caved," says independent tech analyst Rob Enderle. The pledge of interoperability talks "looks like the typical promise that (Apple CEO) Steve Jobs has no intention of keeping," he says.

Cisco declined to comment beyond the official statement. Apple did not return phone calls.

The controversy over the iPhone name began last year, when Apple was developing a feature-packed cell phone. Long before it had an official name, Apple fans dubbed it the iPhone. That's because many Apple products begin with an "i," including the iPod music player and iTunes music store.

But there was a problem: Cisco, the world's largest network equipment maker, owned the iPhone trademark. It had originally been registered in 1996 by InfoGear, a networking company later acquired by Cisco. After the deal, Cisco adopted the name and introduced a line of iPhones, which it still sells today.

Cisco's iPhones are corporate office phones that place calls over an Internet connection instead of a traditional phone network. They do not compete directly with Apple's iPhone.

Lawyers from the two companies talked, but Apple broke off the discussion, Cisco said. Hours later, Apple announced its iPhone. Cisco sued in U.S. District Court.

At the time, Cisco said what it really wanted was for Apple to make the iPhone compatible with other products. Cisco advocates such standards because it sells the networking gear that connects them.

But now it appears that Apple will get the name without fully meeting Cisco's demands, Kay says.

"It looks like Cisco got shafted," he says. "Maybe there's something in the (undisclosed) terms, but I don't see how they're getting the good end of the deal."

Labels: technology