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Soft Tissue Discovered In T-Rex Bone
kubla2000 writes, "Paleontologists have discovered soft tissue inside the fossilized thigh bone of a T-Rex. The tissue included blood vessels, bone cells, and perhaps even blood cells." From the article: "When paleontologists find fossilized dinosaur bones during a dig, they usually do everything in their power to protect them, using tools like toothbrushes to carefully unearth the bones without inflicting any damage. However, when scientists found a massive Tyrannosaurus rex thigh bone in a remote region of Montana a few months ago, they were forced to break the bone in two in order to fit it into the transport helicopter. This act of necessity revealed a startling surprise: soft tissue that had seemingly resisted fossilization still existed inside the bone. This tissue... was so well preserved that it was still stretchy and flexible."
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If the soft tissue really is dino tissue, instead of a post-mortem parasite or something, then I would hope the act of breaking the bone did not disturb it (and why in the world is "not fitting in helo" a good reason to break such a priceless artifact anyway???). That tissue is a great source of biological residue, the goldmine being DNA. But it's very easy to contaminate ancient DNA, so I hope they were *really* *really* careful when they broke that bone (*cringes*) and loaded it for transport.
Every time a biology related story is posted the discussion degenerates to Creationism vs. Evolution.
Which makes me wonder why. I mean, we don't start discussing whether Santa Claus exists every time a Christmas related story pops up, why do we talk about creationism?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I mean, we don't start discussing whether Santa Claus exists every time a Christmas related story pops up, why do we talk about creationism?
Because there's no large group of people out there that actually believe Santa Claus exists, and are trying to force our children to be taught that "Clausology" is a scientific theory?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Dude, this is a YEAR OLD! And slashdot ran this exact same story last year.
Yes, but the story is still "stretchy and flexible".
Table-ized A.I.
How is that a good reason?
http://outcampaign.org/
RTFA. They haven't found any DNA and said that scientists don't believe that DNA can last 7 million years so they don't expect to find any.
How about this, RTFParagraph.
Does this discovery of soft dinosaur tissue mean that scientists will soon be able to clone a Tyrannosaurus rex? Probably not most scientists believe that DNA cannot survive for 70 million years. Then again, before this discovery, most scientists believed that soft tissue could not survive for 70 million years either.
This discovery has shown that "most scientists" can be wrong. So it's quite possible that they're wrong about how long DNA can last.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Naw... according to "Flood Geology", there really were dinosaurs, but they were killed in the great flood approximately 5000 years ago. Hence the term "antediluvian".
:-)
In fact, maybe I should throw the 'Answers in Genesis' people a bone by suggesting an argument for them: clearly, this result is yet another proof of creation science! After all, it's totally implausible that soft tissue could survive in rock for 65000000 years as mainstream science would have us believe! (Never mind the puzzle of how it could survive for 5000 years, for that matter..
"If the theory of gravity were so scientific, there would be no concern of how this would be interpreted by people which believed they could flap their arms and fly."
It doesn't matter how well proven a fact of science is, there will always be those who deny it due to their willful ignorance or fanaticism. If the only people they harm in the process are themselves, no great loss. If, however, they have access to children or other innocents -- picture a doctor who doesn't believe in the germ theory of disease -- they become dangerous.
Creationists teach lies to children, lies which make them, as adults, less capable of understanding the universe as it is. The universe is dangerous enough when we do understand it -- it is infinitely more so when we don't.
Are you kidding? That article says that Carbon dating is inaccurate because it doesn't take into account the massive cloud of water vapor used by some theologians to explain the Great Flood as depicted in the Bible. The author goes on to say that no carbon-14 would remain after 10 half lives, which indicates that he has no idea what a half-life is.
Scientists never said C-14 dating was 100% accurate. Carbon-14 is formed in the atmosphere when cosmic radiation reacts with Nitrogen. The accuracy if carbon dating depends on how constant the amount of nitrogen in the air is, and how much cosmic radiation hits the atmosphere. Neither of those things are likely to have changed very much in the last 60,000 years.
Claiming both atheists and Christians indoctrinate their kids to the same degree is as ludicrous as claiming the same thing about, say, mainstream Christians and the Muslim parents who send their kids to madras schools. One doesn't have to have any particular religious persuasion to see that teaching kids a relatively complex narrative (the old and new testaments) requires more time and effort on the parts of parents than not teaching them the narrative.
...forcing their children to believe in nothing.
Naturally.
It's hard work. You have no idea how thin "Things just happen" gets as an explanation.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
>Can we 'start a meme that you don't use apo'strophe's in every word that end's in "'s" plea'se?
Or use the title of your post as the first line? Or worse, as PART of your first line.
Lazy Coward
I am not religious, so please don't take this the wrong way. But why must we assume that our theories of soft-tissue preservation are incorrect, rather than our theories of radio carbon-dating fossils?
"Crude and slow, clansman. Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy child."
It is interesting to me that the thought that will occur to most non-creationist scientists will be "Wow, I guess soft tissue CAN last 70 million years" rather than "Maybe the fossil isn't as old as we thought..." There's dogmaticism on both sides.