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Signs of Ancient Cells and Proteins Found In Dinosaur Fossils
sciencehabit writes: The cupboards of the Natural History Museum in London hold spectacular dinosaur fossils, from 15-centimeter, serrated Tyrannosaurus rex teeth to a 4-meter-long hadrosaur tail. Now, researchers are reporting another spectacular find, buried in eight nondescript fossils from the same collection: what appear to be ancient red blood cells and fibers of ancient protein. Using new methods to peer deep inside fossils, the study in this week's issue of Nature Communications backs up previous, controversial reports of such structures in dinosaur bones. It also suggests that soft tissue preservation may be more common than anyone had guessed.
I wonder what Dinosaur meat taste like ...
Who knows? The cloned dino might become our next meal?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I, for one, welcome our giant drumstick-bearing, chicken-flavored overlords.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I totally read that in a southern US accent.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Cue young earth creationists claiming this dinosaur was intelligently designed 5000 years ago.
Sigh.
Some of them already claim that soft tissue discoveries proved that dinosaurs were recent. IIRC it was listed in the "creationist rigs search results" article a week or two ago.
Of course, there's a pending religious schism between those who claim all the dinos died in the flood, those who claim that they were saved by Noah and died later, and those who say they never existed at all (the fossils being planted by God to make sure no eviloutionists believe the bible).
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You want potatoes or cheese grits with that?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Or, that there is an entirely different option: we've been getting Genesis wrong due to approaching it with the wrong worldview (The Lost World of Genesis One, John H Walton). I don't hear this being talked about much, even though it really does seem to be a good way to link "believing the Bible" and accepting science (i.e. it makes most of the points of contention disappear), and I think being able to find some common ground between the two sides of the debate would be good. I am a little concerned though that my hope of "let's consider all ideas, even if they disagree with what we previously thought" is too courageous a position to expect, so this very thoughtful book might get missed by those who most need to read it (defenders of Creationism)...
Palest white circle.
The faintest dab of yellow.
Ain't no such thing as too many grits.
Sure dinos were intelligently designed... by an agentless, iterative, massively parallel, DNA-based world-spanning supercomputer. Just because an intelligent system is smart doesn't mean it has intentions, goals, or a human-like "self".
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
New Jurassic Park film coming to a cinema near you!
Cue young earth creationists claiming this dinosaur was intelligently designed 5000 years ago.
Why do you even bring it up? You honor the creationists too much by acknowledging their existance, and you help their cause by simplifying and slightly misinterpreting their (enormously flawed) arguments, thereby giving them the chance to come back with a "correction" of your post, while completely ignoring science (again).
No. Finding actual DNA would be a real shock, as it's an unstable molecule. Even finding RNA would be quite a shock. It's amazing that we can even get some sort of "proteins" (maybe). Still, if this can be replicated, that's a great start toward understanding what would be in their DNA. We already have the basic framework (modern birds), and we can roll back many of the changes that have occurred in birds by looking at what they have in common versus what deviated in different lineages, plus potentially some more information from other living relatives like crocodilians. But we can't figure out everything that way. We can in many regards guess by means of learning what different genes do and reactivating atavisms or inserting genes that cause the morphological differences in dinosaur species. But finding actual proteins would help take the guesswork out.
It's unlikely, baring discovering some sort of amazing and totally unexpected type of preservation, to ever be able to bring dinosaurs back all the way. But, with a lot of time and research, we may be able to get pretty close.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
I sometimes wish my honesty and self-respect were low enough to let me cash in by publishing any kind of drek people are dying to hear.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They want their headline back. Mary Schweitzer already made the same discovery in 1993, and she's been fighting for more than 2 decades to get her findings past the "consensus" that such long preservation was impossible. It seemed like she had gotten her findings verified again by 2000 but I guess it's still only now becoming generally accepted. Really unfortunate it can still take that long for a major discovery to become accepted.
Mary Schweitzer's been working on this since 1993 when she found soft-tissue in a fossil and nobody would believe that's what she'd found. Her latest paper is getting fragments of the protein chains from a T-Rex. Back in 1993 she was told that any soft tissue at all was entirely and completely impossible. Don't know how realistic it is, but I really want to believe some manner of circumstances allow T-Rex clones in the future.
Cue young earth creationists claiming this dinosaur was intelligently designed 5000 years ago.
Sigh.
Some of them already claim that soft tissue discoveries proved that dinosaurs were recent. IIRC it was listed in the "creationist rigs search results" article a week or two ago.
Of course, there's a pending religious schism between those who claim all the dinos died in the flood, those who claim that they were saved by Noah and died later, and those who say they never existed at all (the fossils being planted by God to make sure no eviloutionists believe the bible).
You forget the existing religious schism which pits creationists vs those who accept evolution. This is something that completely baffles me, creationism, since I came to the US 26 years ago.
Creationism is hardly a form of thought in the rest of Christendom, but it is so dominant in the US. How can this country who has achieved so much have so many troglodyte-thinking people?
My grandma back in my country, who has never left her little mountain town and who only completed elementary education accepts evolution (scientists say so, I don't understand it, but they do, because they studied a lot, so it must be true, that is what she says.)
The level of willful stupidity in this country boggles the mind.