Birds Basically Baby Dinosaurs

Don't look now, but there may be dinosaurs on your front lawn. Research into early bird and dinosaur tissue has shown that birds are more closely related to dinosaurs than we had thought, Discovery reports. "By analyzing fossil evidence from skeletons, eggs, and soft tissue of bird-like dinosaurs and primitive birds, we've learned that birds are living theropod dinosaurs, a group of carnivorous animals that include Velociraptor," says a researcher. But birds become sexually mature faster than dinosaurs did, so they've hung onto the physical traits of baby dinosaurs. (More birds stories.)