>> the coalition against i.s.i.l. gross, as the terrorist group gains more ground in syria. tensions flare in ferguson. those stories and much more straight ahead. this is about psych pathic

terrorists who are trying to kill us. >> britain is joining the fight is again i.s.i.l. in iraq. >> prevent be iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon would be a huge goal of the community. >> i deeply apologize to the brown family. >> i'm sorry will not be enough for the miebs supporters. >> they -- the michael brown supporters. >> they don't want a gesture. they want justice. >> i'm really tired, i want to go home. >> for making their devices too hard to crack. >> i saw myself waste be time in school eight hours a day. >> you can't teach creative andy and you can't teach taste.

>> the coalition to defeat i.s.i.l, many more moderates are needed to defeat the group. denmark and belgiumagree belgiuo send f-16s. >> left unchecked we will face a terrorist caliphate on the shores of the mediterranean, with a proven determination to attack our country and our people. >> denmark bel belgium and britn will only allow their planes to be flown over iraq.

inside turkey did not provoke a response. and outchiefs of staff jernl dempsey, will not be enough. many. >> 5,000' never been the end state. we've had estimates anywhere from 12 to 15,000 is what we believe they would need to recapture lost teary in eastern syria. >> from washington i'm joined by seth jones. he's an adjunct professor at the johns hopkins school of international studies and served as a command general in u.s. forces in afghanistan and assistant to command to the u.s. secretary of defense. seth, good to see you. britaibritain's parliament voted

yesterday to help in the fight against i.s.i.l. in iraq but not syria. >> i think it's a help, at least for strikes in iraq, obviously, the big problem of the long run is going to be what happens in the neighboring syria. but i think the more help one can get in iraq the better. it's not good enough but it's good for the moment. >> you wrote recently that president obama, what you call the light footprint approach in going after this war in iraq and syria, limiting u.s. involvement to air power and that local troops need to be involved and do it for themselves. but that's a strategy that's leaner than president bush's and it might not be any more successful. then on friday, joint chiefs chair martin dempsey said that

5,000 moderate syrian fighters that we're planning to train are not nearly enough that we need 12 to 15,000. to recapture the territories in iraq and syria. how likely are we going to get that many? >> when there's larger security forces kurdish includes peshmerga and sunnies, including sunni tribes. the bigger challenge is currently going to be syria, where there aren't enough coordinated competent free syrian forces. well equipped, well organized, fought bravely have been among odors the jihaddists, jabat al nusra, there aren't many good allies and certainly not many good choice on the ground.

>> you raise the question about whether this kind of light footprint approach is going to be effective and you say that really, we don't know enough about whether that kind of thing will work. but didn't we see that, what's happened in libya where we've seen ensuing chaos? >> well, the light footprint in libya back in 2011 was with clearly good enough to overthrow the gadhafi regime. where it's been problematic and this is a major down side of a light footprint approach is what happens afterward. and that is, what happens in libya, what happens after the gadhafi regime falls. and in that case it was a range of substate militia forces that continue to vie for power throughout key rural areas and in some cases in misrada and even major cities along the coast. in an across libya it cell.

this light footprint strategy succeeds or fails based on the quality of local forces. the same thing we saw in afghanistan where the light footprint approach was used in 2001 to overthrow the taliban regime. but the strategy was afterwards. this is just as relevant for syria, perhaps for iraq, but as relevant for syria today as it was in libya in 2011 and afghanistan in 2001 where that proach waapproach was used. >> they are apparently moving around on motorcycles, i.s.i.l, instead of convoys, that they're putting their black flags on empty houses to guide us in the wrong direction. can adjusts like that effectively negate our power in the air? you are a special ops guy, do we

need more special ops people on the ground in syria and iraq? >> well, i think any good group like i.s.i.l. is going to try to learn from u.s. and broader activity in syria and iraq. they are going to improve their counterintelligence capabilities, going to make it more difficult to monitor communications. that just means that the response from u.s. and other participating nations including the iraqi government on the iraq side of the border has got to be to learn as well and that is to get better human sources inside these organizations. to find vulnerabilities because there are vulnerabilities in communications including i.s.i.l.'s communications online. but i do think bigger picture is for this to succeed over the long run and for the islamic state to be pushed out of iraq

and to be weakened in syria this has to be a major special operations presence. i do think that numbers have got to go up slightly to train, advise, assist iraqi forces, and assist syrian rebel groups and then to also become involved in direct action operations and to strike some target. this will be i think if it's to succeed a heavy operations presence. >> authorities in spain and morocco made arrests on friday, other arrests in u.k. and australia, why suddenly this sudden spate of arrests? if security agencies were aware of these guys why shouldn't they have been picked up before? is this kind of an overreaction? well actually if you look at the last two years there have been numerous arrests across europe for fighters who have come back from particularly syria,

increasingly iraq as well. i'd put this in the broader picture of this isn't a recent development. we've had arrests in spain france united kingdom belgium germany over the past year and even two years of fighters. this problem will likely persist. why now? i think we have countries with actual intelligence at the moment. but i think this is something we're going to see for foreseeable future as fighters go to and return from the syrian iraqi battlefield. >> findly a final question. khorasan group, al qaeda offshoot, these people who were sent by al qaeda central by ayman al zwahiri. the issue whether the name is something the united states invented because the administration doesn't want to call it al qaeda.

and this also shows that al qaeda has not been decimated. your thoughts on that? >> well, look i think it's pretty straightforward. the bulk of these individuals that are operating under what some are calling the khorasan group are individuals who have worked at various levels for al qaeda in iran in south asia and more broadly in different parts of the middle east. so they have a connection to the core back in pakistan under ayman al zwahiri. under jabad al nusra, and al qaeda has not been decimated. they have definitely been weakened in pakistan. they have the ability to generate somewhat and to plot attacks from at least syria into

europe and the united states. i'd call it what it is, which is these are al qaeda operatives. >> seth, appreciate you joining us, thanks. >> thanks as always. >> turning now to negotiating a nuclear deal with iran. it's long been a top foreign policy goal for president obama, something he emphasized at the u.n. this week. >> my message to iran's leaders aand people have been simple and consistent . do not let this opportunity pass. >> but nearly a year into the nuclear negotiations are the parties any closer to a deal? it depends on whom you ask. friday, france's foreign minister refused to attend talks in new york saying no significant progress had been made to justify the meeting. >> translator: this morning we were meant to have a meeting with the p-5 plus 1 and on the other side the iranians but due to the lack of forward movement this meeting has been cancelled.

>> but secretary kerry who did meet with iranian foreign minister mohamed jarat sharif said they have a hope for an agreement in weeks. wendy sherman showed progress as well. >> i think we have close to an agreement. >> reza it's good to have you back on the show. i want to get from you your opinion. what's the reality? the optimism from the u.s. and germany or the pessimism from france that led for this foreign minister meeting to be cancelled? even iran president rouhani says the progress has been relatively slow. >> it's closer to what the americans and germans are saying. there's no question gaps,

differences need to be bridged but there's also no question to say, it's beyond a shadow of a doubt i'd go that far to say that we are far past when we were in july, when the parties last met in vienna. >> talking about gaps there's reportedly a hurnlg gap between parties about how many centrifuges iran would be allowed to keep to enrich uranium. one of the approaches is to allow iran to keep around half its centrifuges but reduce the amount of uranium it has, it would take longer to produce the material needed for a nuclear warhead. would that fly with the republican senators who accused the obama administration of getting desperate for a deal? >> two parts to that question. let's unpack it. first part is, is the deal doable. that's the essence of the question. scientifically numerous ways to

get this deal done that will satisfy the political requirements of both sides. it's the political leadership in tehran and washington and other capitals. they must be able to take risks for peace. they have to take yes for an answer and sell it at home. that's the first part. second part, congress will not be required at least not right away to deliver on america's end of the bargains. sanctions relief from europe will be enough. together the united states and europe can provide enough in the beginning to give iran what they'll need. in the longer run yes, congress is going to have to lift sanctions but over the short to medium term if you build trust and demonstrate that both sides fulfill live up to their commitments i think we can get there. >> you are echoing what others have said that a bold concession needs to come from iran or the united states and its international partners. we know the issues with congress, going ahead with anything or approving anything

that gets done. but would iran be able to make a bold move especially when everyone knows that the supreme leader, yoal ayatollah khoumeini could trump what any other leaders did? >> not that it's possible but both sides has demonstrated a ridiculingneswillingness to do . both sides have fulfilled their commitments from the time that deal was signed until that present day and both sides have been able to make progress in these very difficult and tough negotiations from last november until the present day. so there's no question that progress has been made. no question that both sides are weighing the very tough choices that need to be made. i think we can get there but again the leaders have to be willing to take those risks and i think we're going to see horse

trading until the 11th hour in november. >> is rouhani trying to leverage fighting i.s.i.l. to ease sanctions on iran and get a better nuclear deal? because he has said we should not miss this historic opportunity over a couple of centrifuges. it is more than a couple of centrifuges, it is thousands of them. but he said if we could get a deal that there would be greater cooperation in the middle east. >> absolutely. and it's no coincident that president obama has said the exact same thing. he said this opportunity should not be missed. he said we should not be arguing over -- we should not let a deal die over a couple of thousand centrifuges and if this deal got done it could potentially open up the opportunity for cooperation over other issues. the reality is that iran was trying to conflate the issues with other issues be it i.s.i.s. or anything else has been less than honest. the iranians have said very clearly, we have got our hands

with this nuclear deal. it was the foreign minister that said it. they have said from the outset they don't want to conflate the issues. the americans agree. everything is on track. these negotiations are so high stakes that at the end of the day, oftentimes you have journalists that are taking the spin that the various journalists want to spin out and it is hard to decipher one thing from the next. >> reza morazi thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> and now for other stories around the world. we begin in oklahoma where a gruesome attack has left a woman dead and another in the hospital. 30-year-oldalton notic30-year-on fieshed. nolan was taken to the hospital and will be arrestonce he

regains consciousness. nolan spent two years in prison for drug charges and assaulting a police officer. he recently became a muslim and he had attempted to convert co-workers. authorities have found no link to terrorism. next to chicago where 2,000 flights have been cancelled where a fire was started at an air control facility. building was evacuated, when officials arrived they found a contractor with self inflicted nongunshot wounds as well as burns on his body. frustrated passengers were stuck in airports throughout the country as all flights in and out of chicago's o'hare and midway international airports were temporarily cancelled. some have resumed but on a limited basis. we end in north korea.

where kim jong-un does not feel well fm an uncomfortable physical condition. many korean analysts think it's gout after he was seen limping at a public event in july. gout is thought to run in his family. that's some about what's happening around the world. google, security measures that will make it harder to obtain information from suspects phones. will it hinder law enforcement or a necessary step to protect privacy? tensions boil over as ferguson's police come face to face with the public. our social media producer, hermela aregawi. what's trending? >> some people say derek jeter's ending was fit for hollywood. join the conversation on twitter

@ajconsiderthis and on our facebook page.

>> fbi director james comey lashed out this week for apple

and google for encryption security matters. comey said he could not understand why companies could market something to place people above the law. apple will be the phone of choice for the pedophile, they're probably thinking, i've got to get an apple phone. joining us is peter sweyer, served on president obama's nsa reform panel. peter great to be with us. >> great to be here. >> this has turned into a recurring debate over the past couple of decades as the internet and technology has exploded. seems every time there's a security innovation, law enforcement says they're going dark and losing the capability to do their job.

the big question is how do we find a balance between privacy rights and security? >> that's right. the police are worried that the new technology stops them from doing things. a lot of my own research shows the police have a lot of technology they haven't had before. they focus on the things they don't have anymore and that's what this new apple and google stuff might be an example of. >> doesn't law enforcement have an argument because not only do these innovations curtail illegal warrantless surveillance but even if a judge says, there's more than enough reason for you to be able to look at what's on this guy's phone what this is do is make it impossible or close to impossible even if there's a warrant. >> that's what the police feel. they feel if they have a warrant they ought to be able to get anything. this is part of what the big fight over encryption was in the '90s. when the fbi wanted to build in

securities into the net so they could see in. the same doorway that the police use can be used by other people and that's why i think having good defense is so important. >> but again if a judge says for example that a person could be a terrorist threat, and you, that law enforcement should have access to whatever is on the phone or an ipad that that person owns, shouldn't law enforcement be able to have access to it? >> but i think the key thing today is, for instance, for apple or google what they're saying is they're going to build the phone in a secure way. so that nobody except the phone's owner can open it up. and apple will not have a secret key to open up the iphone. google will not have a secret key to open up the android. that secret key is a vulnerability. what fbi comey is saying, please

have this security vulnerability built into this phone. apple and google are saying no we're going to tighten it up end to end. >> i understand but what happens if you do have a terrorist threat how can you then get the information you might need? >> well, you know police work happened before people had cell phones. there's a lot of ways when you have a suspect you track them, you can track their current phone calls. if they back it up to the cloud which a lot of people do you can go to the cloud provider such as apple's icloud. i argue the police are in a corn cope 88 time when they've had more data points than they've ever had before. there are a few things that get closed down but other things get opened up. police focus on the little bit they lose they don't tend to talk about the huge things they

gain. >> hackers have unbelievable access to our information. they have hack into our private phones and tablets and computers with an ease that is scary. so is this -- we just saw the whole celebrity nude photo scandal that came up because of people being able to hack these things. so are these measures important for us as consumers to be able to have our privacy? >> my view is the same as we did in the president's review commission, review group. we say defense applies to all individuals, businesses, government agencies and we have to build better defense into agencies and not just having a back door for the fbi. we understand the fbi may have certain things they can't do but we have to have better security across an awful lot of devices so these hacks don't happen quite so much. >> there's nothing new about the new security issues, so why does the fbi think they have to help

them do their job beyond what is legally required? >> the fbi has won on a legal things like calia. they have to enable the phone switch to be wiretap ready. and what the fbi has been asking for a lot of times is that every internet software and hardware device be made wiretap ready. and the counter-argument is that's making it hacker ready it's creating vulnerabilities that others can exploit. you don't have a goldylocks solution. you don't have an in between. if the hole is there for the fbi the hole is there for the hackers and we have to decide how much we want swiss cheese to be our design philosophy when we're talking about security. >> how much is this good for apple and google in its android system? because since the companies can't really do anything, if the fbi says, hey give us this, they

say we captain do this, have no ability to do this, they can't hand over data that makes them unpopular and fewer staff to deal with those kinds of requests. >> i think what's happened since snowden, is microsoft, google, yahoo apple, these big companies are facing pressure from overseas. the security inside these big tech companies have gotten a new voice and we're seeing a much better security culture. the cyber-haks ar-hacks are ter. they are catching up with security i think they should have had all along. >> pier sweyer pleasure to have you with us. good to be here thanks. turning to another night of protests and arrests. after thomas jackson publicly

apologized for the dead of michael brown. >> i want to say this to the brown family. no one who has not experienced the loss of a child can understand what you're feeling. i'm truly sorry for the loss of your son. i'm also sorry that it took so long to remove michael from the street. >> the apology released by a public relations firm hired by the city after weeks of nightly and often violent protests was not well received by the community. chief gesson walked the streets to take questions from residents late thursday night but protests called for his resignation and chaos ensued. and joining us now from kansas city to talk about what changes have been implemented in fergs ferguson since the shooting as well as a new ncaa report, about

the shooting, john jasson. wasn't it a good idea to apologize? >> well, it is never -- it is always good to apologize for something that you have done wrong especially when you've made a ball one ter as serie ble one the ferguson police made. it is quite late to make an apologize such as this. it appears that the ferguson police department and their leadership continues to make mistake after mistake and that's very concerning to us and the citizens of ferguson should be concerned about that. as you saw last night, things got a little hairy there last night between protesters and the police chief. and so what you're seeing on television, not much has changed. but in terms of our efforts from the st. louis county ncaa naacpe

st. louis county is now wearing body armor. seriously expressed and really encouraged that step to take place. you now have st. louis county police who are wearing body cameras. civil rights organizations like the naacp and citizens who are asking for that. you have a city that is now beginning to really start to address the concerns of many citizens. now in place you have a fine system that is now being reworked. revamped and reorganized, i guess if you will. along with the process. >> right so there's been some progress, so then why, what happened last night, because given everything that's happening, that has happened, why not have the police chief go out and talk to protesters, and

try to be open with them, as he apparently tried to do last night? >> well, to give you a little insight of what took place last night, it is my understanding that the police chief was also trying to march and rally with protesters. it appears that the pr advice that they are being given probably needs to be reevaluated. because i don't think it is ever appropriate for a police chief to be going out at 11:00 at night, to address protesters. that's probably not the best idea. especially when you have a group of protesters that are concerned, that are angry, and have many questions and many concerns. i think that could certainly be addressed in a press conference, and a meeting could certainly be called with many protesters or town haul forum, where questions can be asked and answers provided. >> i understand your point. but the reality is though, there

have been so many missteps by this police department after michael brown was shot, the reaction has really just been a mess, to say the least, from the police department. but at some point doesn't there seem to be an inclination to find fault even when the police are trying to reach out to the community? >> well, you have many people that are calling for the police chief's resignation. i think that in order to restore credibility, when there have been these -- this many levels of mistakes that have been made really on a daily basis, dating all the way back to the day michael brown was killed, the police chief needs oresign. anto resign. and the police department needs to be transparent. he needs to resign and they need to start from scratch and that's a step in the right direction towards credibility.

>> residents feel like they've lodge been the target of law enforcement. the chief spoke of that in his video. >> i'm also aware of the pain that some have felt in the african american community by the police department. it's clear we have much work to do. >> and he said they would take specific action on a number of levels but he said all this on the same day that attorney general eric holder resigned. people in ferguson i know were disappointed about that and also the naacp released a report called born suspect, stop and frisk in america, and the report highlights how many states don't have laws that specifically prohibit racial profiling. that surprised me and it also says that not only one state has laws that meet what the naacp believes should be the proper standards. >> that is you know i have to commend dr. neos kosravi, the

director of the criminal justice department many along with our ceo cornell brooks. i think that report can be a very valuable resource and tool for many naacp units and other organizations and policy makers across the breadth and width of this nation to take a look at the data we pull together and take a look do we really meet the standards and do we live up to what we're saying we live up to. i can tell you locally in st. louis and within ferguson we have a lot of work to do. and we are going to have to ensure that our state legislature, the city councils, are putting into place policies that address racial pro filings, that -- profiling, that address police brutality but not only that, that are taking the steps to make sure that citizens are confident in their local law enforcement and they feel safe

and they feel that law enforcement is serving and protecting. we have to do that. >> the report raises some important questions. john gascon, thanks for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> what's trending on the web. hermella william. >> derek jeter's last game was as epic as his career. bottom of the 9th inning, jeter drove in the winning run. social media was all about it. over 500,000 tweets mentioning jeter, and over a million altogether. 44% of the tweets mentioning jeter were from the u.s. many came from sweden japan australia and honduras. it was the most watched regular season game on the mlb network. yesterdayer's two-year-old

nephew jalen stole the show after he tipped his hat to his uncle. hollywood ending. antonio it really is so perfect! >> you have to be a yankee hater not to have been touched bay that. hermella thank you. >> you're welcome. >> well to becoming mainstream. and drinking in america, surprising information in our data dive. and while the birds of today are not that scary their prehistoric ancestors certainly were. who's pregnant, and you tell me that's what god wants... >> a controversial law >> where were you when the babies lives were being saved? >> are women in texas paying the price? >> who's benefiting from restricting access to safe abortions? >> fault lines... al jazeera america's hard hitting... ground breaking...

truth seeking... breakthrough investigative documentary series access restricted only on al jazeera america

>> more than 1.7 million children in america are now being educated at home. once the domain of deeply religious families, home schooling becoming increasingly more common among other americans. edge of eighteen. >> i also don't go to normal high school. >> in contrast to new england and the middle colonies, towns were scarce in the south.

>> i'm home schooled by choice. i saw myself wasting time in the day. i had no time to go out and do things and meet people. i had to be in beds, have school the next day it was such a restraint. >> i'm joined by milton gather, author of the book home school an american history. milton good of you to join us. i think it's fair to say tell me if i'm wrong that the conventional wisdom was that home schooling was mostly the domain of fundamentalist christian families. that's certainly not the case anymore. it's become much more mainstream. >> that's the case, you're right. >> and the reasons for home schooling are varied. we're talking everyone from will smith and jada pinkett smith, saying they home schooled their kids because the children had to have the flexibility to travel.

tom athletes, musicians -- top athletes, musicians, why is it happening so much for them, does it become their only option? >> when you're devoted eight hours to dance or acting or whatever it is, you have to fit in school whenever you can. prime time is during the day. a lot of kids like that they work it in around the edges and you can't do that in conventional school. >> you saw the boy in edge of 8een that you just saw, is that a typical school? >> i thuz if you look at the -- think if you look at the, graphics, usually doing it for mostlmostly religious reasons, e other 30, 40% are going to be

more of what you're describing. kids coming at it for all kinds of reasons. >> let's talk about the standards. it's largely unregulated, i guess in some states it's totally regulated, in others it's minimally regulated. there aren't enough standards for what's going on in a home schooling environment. >> right, that's been interesting discussion of late. the general trajectory since the 1990s to the degree there are regulations to try to decrease them. lately there last been a movement by largely graduate home schoolers adults, who look back on their past and see what their younger siblings are facing and some of them are calling for nfer increasing regulations. we haven't seen that bear fruit

at the legislative level. short of some catastrophe of family violence or something like that on a large scale because typically the home school community is very strongly motivated and very highly connected and they do a very good job of turning out to oppose any kind of restrictions on home schooling. >> they have been pretty aggressive about fighting any of those restrictions. you brought up the tragic consequences, taking them out of school does expose them to danger because if it's not regulated if these kids are not being seen by anyone outside the house, and we have the example of nubia barahona and kids who allegedly were abused by their parents who ended up dying because simply nobody saw them. an abuse that could have been detected had they pen going to school. >> that's right. number one people to catch child abuse are usually the classroom teacher. if you don't have a classroom

teacher who is going to catch it? >> why aren't they more in effect bringing regulations into effect? home schooling in visible children which brings out a number of these abuse cases, but it's not just that. it's also you referred to it some argument that in edge of 18, they bring up that 35% of online students earned up not graduating on time. are there issues educationally? >> that's another regulation you can talk about. last statistic, public education taken in the home, cyber-charter schools. there you have a clear mandate for more regulation, these should be subject to whatever public schools are, results are coming in and they're not good. on the other hand, the more conventional home schooling as such, why there's no push through, those who being

advocate for more regulation, are not that organized. get out the vote and get out the enthusiasm, those are the ones who win. also the home schoolers have a very powerful lobbying group, it's called the home school legal defense organization, and they have poached regulations in every state very effectively. >> you tell me this is going to be part of the legal education controversy. >> no doubt. it's going to bring in all sorts of interesting developments. >> we hope you'll join us again to talk about those developments. milton gather thanks. edge of eighteen premiers, this sun, 9 eastern, 6 pacific. stunning numbers about how much alcohol americans are drinking. that's in our data dive next.

flooded this small town... >> can they survive? don't miss primetime news on al jazeera america all next week

>> today's data dive tries to get a handle on drinking. the washington post found that a third of americans have one glass or more a night. 20% have two or more. then the numbers get staggering. consuming an average of 74 alcoholic drinks every week, 24 million american adults school an average of more than ten drinks a day, that's equivalent to of more than 80 bottles of wine every week.

tea totelers. the alcoholic beverage industry is so dependent on those heaviest drinkers that if he had cut their habit to just the next level of drinkers meaning two drinks a day, sales would plunge by an estimated 60%. the national institutes of healed find the younger you start the more dependent you become, compared to those who wait until they're 21. a big issue is that when americans drink, many will do it to dangerous excess. the cdc reports pinge drinking -- bingee drinking is a problem, 18 to 30-year-olds bingee drink more than any other age of group. men bingee drink twice as much as woman.

alcoholism of course could lead to all sorts of physical problems, high blood pressure, stroke, liver disease, heart disease even brain damage. coming up it turns that pigeons and t rexes have a lot more in common than you ever thought. >> hi everyone i'm john siegenthaler and coming up right after "consider this" the growing coalition against i.s.i.l. three more countries pledge their support while a top general revisits the idea of boots on the ground. >> plus our special report on war on truth. my conversation with ann al jazeera journalist jailed for doing his josh. plus technology to reduce texting while driving. all that coming up right after "consider this," we'll see you then.

>> did the canary descend from the t rex? paleontologists, believe that the earliest known bird, the 150 million known bird appeared suddenly at lest in evolutionary time. but in a discovery with brawfd implications for our understanding of ef illusion, researchers led by the

university of edinborough, analyzed 150 dinosaur specious found that birds evolved from dinosaurs and they could barely be told apart. evolutionary transition from dinosaurs to birds in the journal current biology. steve very good to have you back on the show. i think it's hard for people, certainly it's hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that a canary or a mockingbird could diseend fro have descendea dinosaur. >> i know, living dinosaurs and there's 10,000 of them so dinosaurs really aren't extinct. >> how did that happen though?

how did the giant meat eating dinosaurs make the transition and turn from these massive animals into these tiny birds? >> yeah. when we think of meat eating dinosaurs we think of things like t rex,s this 40 ton predators. but it wasn't a story of a t rex turning into a bird overnight. that's not how evolution works. that's what we found with this new study, we put together this huge family tree of meat eating dinosaurs, showing what birds are most closely related to and what we found having this family tree for context is that birds didn't just evolve overnight but the process of a bird evolving from a dinosaur was something that took tens of millions of years. gradual, are piecemeal. birds ability to fly. then it took a long time.

>> and once it happened though, after that long time that slow evolution, there was a kind of evolutionary explosion, and that's why we now have these thousands of species of birds? >> that's right. and it's an interesting story because it took birds a long time to come together. it's like putting together a car or putting together a lego set or something like that. it takes time. you assemble it piece by piece. but when birds finally fully came together and you had a dinosaur with feathers and wings that was small, that could fly, then bam. an evolutionary explosion. birds started to evolve more rapidly than any other type of dinosaur. and probably, that's why one reason why birds were able to survive the extinction that wiped out all the other dinosaurs and why there's still 10,000 species of birds around today.

>> and that is mostly why, because they could fly? >> this is one of the big mysteries. and as we talked about a few months ago, we've really nailed down the extinction. the big asteroid came out of space 66 million years ago, tall long neck dinosaurs were doomed. but this one pecular group of dine sawrs that could fly made it through. dinosaurs that could fly made i.t. through. they could grow faster they had faster met an lisms. and workin work -- metabolisms,d survive that cataclysm when the rock fell out of the sky. >> let's talk about the velociraptors, in you jurassic ,

if you were around in the time you are talking about, you would consider the velociraptor around at that time? >> i think so. i love jurassic park, i was nine years old when it came out and it looked me. you don't think these dinosaurs looked much like birds. but fossils of thousands of dinosaurs covered in feathers, it had a wishbone and may have even had a wing. so yes i think if you were standing around in the crutaceous park, from a save distance of course, you would just consider velociraptor as another bird. it was not yet a bird, it was a

very interesting dinosaur. >> could they glide before they could fly? >> that's a mystery that some of us including here in u.k. are trying to work out. how did dinosau dinosaurs evolve flights? did it evolve through animals that lived in trees that started gliding? did it evolve from animals that were running around on the ground or did it evolve from another way? more and more dinosaurs are being found somewhere around the world, we're getting a clear picture. stay tuned. this is one of the mysteries like dinosaur paleontologists are working on right now. >> will you give us a call when thraps please? >> of course i will. it is always a pleasure to be on antonio. >> great steve, thanks. that's all for now, but the

conversation continues on aljazeera.com and twitter @ajconsiderthis and tweet me @amora.tv. we'll see you next time. >> hi everyone this is al jazeera america i'm john siegenthaler. why some turks say their own leaders are to blame. texting while driving. new technology to help police crack down on a deadly habit. and war on truth. journalists targeted, thrown in prison, killed, just for doing