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Hadrosaur Proteins Sequenced
jd writes "In a follow-up study to the one on proteins found in a T. Rex bone, the team responsible for the T. Rex study sequenced proteins found in an 80-million year old Hadrosaur fossil. According to the article, the proteins found confirm the results of the T. Rex study, proving that what was found in T. Rex was not a result of modern contamination, as had been claimed by skeptics, but was indeed the genuine thing: real dinosaur protein. Furthermore, despite the new fossil being 12 million years older, they claim they got more out — eight collagen peptides and 149 amino acids from four different samples. This, they say, places the Hadrosaur in the same family as T. Rex and Ostriches, but that not enough was recovered to say just how close or distant the relationship was."
Respect to fossil biologists for tough work - it's like putting together jigsaw puzzle that's missing majority of its pieces. That being the case, I wish they choose their terminology, like the term "prove", bit more judiciously, lest us plebs gets misled.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Things decay for a (chemical) reason. Very low temperatures, absence of oxygen, water, etc. can simply stop chemical processes. I have no idea of the circumstances of this find, but it seems entirely plausible that exceptional things can happen in rare situations.
This isn't a defying-the-laws-of-physics thing, it's more "we don't know exactly".