Posted on 10/19/2009 1:40:13 PM PDT by lasereye
In recent decades, soft, squishy tissues have been discovered inside fossilized dinosaur bones. They seem so fresh that it appears as though the bodies were buried only a few thousand years ago.
Since many think of a fossil as having had the original bone material replaced by minerals, the presence of actual bone--let alone pliable blood vessels, red blood cells, and proteins inside the bone--is quite extraordinary. These finds also present a dilemma. Given the fact that organic materials like blood vessels and blood cells rot, and the rates at which certain proteins decay, how could these soft tissues have been preserved for ten thousand, let alone 65 million or more, years?
These soft tissues have met with hard resistance from mainstream science, and some scientists have even discounted or ignored them. But fresh studies keep finding fresh tissue, making the issue difficult to dismiss. Either the vast evolutionary ages assigned to these finds are dramatically erroneous, or "we really don't understand decay" rates of the soft tissues and proteins.1
Paleontologists who have analyzed the tissues, visible through their microscopes and squeezable with their tweezers, insist that something is fundamentally wrong with laboratory data on biochemical decay rates.2 In turn, biochemists are confident that their repeatable experiments show that the soft tissues should not be there after all this time. To try to get around the hard facts of soft tissues, some scientists have even proposed that the blood vessels and red blood cells in question were bacterial slime. This was thoroughly refuted, however, by research showing that the dinosaur tissue contains a collagen protein that bacteria do not produce.3
This dilemma between the science of biochemistry and the belief in millions of years is not going away. In addition to the well-characterized tissues from a T. rex reported by paleontologist Mary Schweitzer in 1997,4 2005,5 and 2007,6 new soft tissue finds keep surfacing. Schweitzer published a report on another sample in Science in 2009,3 this time from a hadrosaur, in which the precise characteristics of dinosaur biochemicals were verified by a third party. This was necessary to confirm the reality of the soft tissues to an incredulous scientific community. (Similarly, Schweitzer's 2007 results have also been verified.7)
Yet another hadrosaur has been described by UK scientists as "absolutely gobsmacking."8 Its tissues were "extremely well preserved" and contained "soft-tissue replacement structures and associated organic compounds."9
Schweitzer's team recently concluded that "the most parsimonious explanation, thus far unfalsified, is that original molecules persist in some Cretaceous dinosaur fossils."3 But biochemical decay rates showing that soft tissues would be dust after all this time are also thus far unfalsified (i.e., have not been disproved). Therefore, the millions-of-years age assignments must go.
However, if the deep time goes, then so does the grand story of evolution that depends on it. For many, that is too sacred an assumption to dare alter. Biblical data, however, not only provide the timeframe for the death of these dinosaurs in Flood deposits a few thousand years ago, but also a mode of deposition in agreement with observable data that their demise occurred when they "fell into a watery grave."8
References
1 Fields, H. 2006. Dinosaur Shocker. Smithsonian magazine online. Published May 2006, accessed July 20, 2009.
2 For example, see Bada, J. L., X. S. Wang and H. Hamilton. 1999. Preservation of key biomolecules in the fossil record: current knowledge and future challenges. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 354 (1379): 77-87.
3 Schweitzer, M. H. et al. 2009. Biomolecular Characterization and Protein Sequences of the Campanian Hadrosaur B. canadensis. Science. 324 (5927): 626-631.
4 Schweitzer, M. and T. Staedter. 1997. The Real Jurassic Park. Earth. 6 (3): 55-57.
5 Schweitzer, M. et al. 2005. Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex. Science. 307 (5717): 1952.
6 Asara, J. M. et al. 2007. Protein Sequences from Mastodon and Tyrannosaurus Rex Revealed by Mass Spectrometry. Science. 316 (5822): 280-285.
7 Bern, M., B. S. Phinney and D. Goldberg. 2009. Reanalysis of Tyrannosaurus rex Mass Spectra. Journal of Proteome Research. Published online July 15, 2009.
8 Mummified dinosaur skin yields up new secrets. The University of Manchester press release, July 1, 2009.
9 Manning, P. L. et al. 2009. Mineralized soft-tissue structure and chemistry in a mummified hadrosaur from the Hell Creek Formation, North Dakota (USA). Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Published online before print, July 1, 2009.
It’s an interesting quandary, to say the least.
Wouldn’t you love to see some of those finds cloned.
Wow...
Perhaps the material has decayed or morphed beyond useful dna or rna being available. If so, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa from here.
So....
Does this mean medieval knights really did slay dragons?
Whoever wrote that has never been to the Grand Canyon.
What are you referring to?
Mmmm.....
>Does this mean medieval knights really did slay dragons?
Maybe they did.
The statement I quoted.
This stuff is very exciting.
Something tells me someone didn’t check to see what “soft tissue” preserved inside dinosaur bone fossils actually entailed, and is therefore assuming someone found large chunks of marrow or something. Yes, soft tissue indications were found, mainly collagens, and were encased in rock themselves.
oh goody. And merlin and excaliber?
>oh goody. And merlin and excaliber?
Stargate SG-1 explains them.
;)
Ya know, I’ve given that some thought on a number of occassions. Science tells us that the dinosaurs were long gone when humans made the scene. You hafta ask; what was the origins of all of the legends concerning “dragons?”
It also strikes me as an incredible leap to suggest that just because our current understanding of the decay of collagens in a fossilization environment can’t explain the presence of those collagens, therefore the whole thing is wrong and the dinosaurs lived only thousands of years ago (and somehow almost all of their bodies mineralized so quickly except this one tissue; and yes we have found fossilized skin). Occam’s razor would suggest that we probably just don’t know enough about collagen preservation yet.
>You hafta ask; what was the origins of all of the legends concerning “dragons?”
Indeed; and it was long thought that the giant squid was only a myth thought-up by sailors.
Repeating the same lies over and over and over....does not make the ad nauseum correct.
There has been exactly ZERO “soft, squishy tissues” found in dinosaur bones, Dr....er....Brian Thomas MS*....and if Brian Thomas MS* knew WTF he was talking about, he’d stop lying about it.....but the truth isn’t what B rian Thomas MS* is interested in.
What HAS been found in fossilized dinosaur bones is FOSSILIZED “soft tisssue structures” that are then de-mineralized.
....but Brian Thomas MS* doesn’t want you to really know that part....all he wants is for you to thinnk that there’s soft-squishy tissue found and then you too will believe that Man walked the Earth at the same time as 100+ large meat eating dinosaurs that all somehow dies 4,351 years ago because they somehow missed their seat on the Ark.
Next article to post would be the “dinosaur skin” that was found. (corrected to the truth....fossilized dinosaur skin structure)
Maybe. But there’s also the possibility that the fossilization happens quicker than is normally thought (you mentioned fossilized skins); if that is the case then the underlying [soft]tissues may also be effectively sealed and thusly more preserved than thought. (Like, if you will, forming a can around the food.)
The biggest “patch” of fossilized skin was about 1’ square. It’s a lot more likely that this “soft” tissue, which is only found in very small amounts, requiring a microscope to see, is preserved by an accident of the way the minerals accumulate during the fossilization process i.e. an airless environment deep inside a thick mineralized bone.
>and then you too will believe that Man walked the Earth at the same time as 100+ large meat eating dinosaurs that all somehow dies 4,351 years ago because they somehow missed their seat on the Ark.
Who said anything about them missing their seat on the ark? They could have gone extinct before then, they could have been brought on-board as [fertilized] eggs, or they could have been hatchlings when they boarded. In all those cases, we would expect that all of the dinosaurs that were not on the ark were dead at that point.
>i.e. an airless environment deep inside a thick mineralized bone.
And how is that NOT my analogy of the fossilization forming around the tissue in question and preserving it like canned food?
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