Posted on 03/24/2005 12:04:54 PM PST by wallcrawlr
WASHINGTON — For more than a century, the study of dinosaurs has been limited to fossilized bones. Now, researchers have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissue, including what may be blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex.
If scientists can isolate proteins from the material, they may be able to learn new details of how dinosaurs lived, said lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University.
"We're doing a lot of stuff in the lab right now that looks promising,'' she said in a telephone interview. But, she said, she does not know yet if scientists will be able to isolate dinosaur DNA from the materials.
The soft tissues were recovered from the thighbone of a T. rex, known as MOR 1125, that was found in a sandstone formation in Montana. The dinosaur was about 18 years old when it died.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
I suppose I'd have a better chance of 'realizing' just how long it takes if I knew (rather than took some 'scientist's word for) how it happened in the first place.
As it is, I'll be content to take God at His word. Otherwise, there's no telling where I'll finally draw the line at where it's right and where it's 'wrong'.
And all got was this lousy finger in my chili.
How long before we can decrypt protein to reconstruct DNA? Or reverse engineer extinct species by interpolating current DNA.
But beware of the frogs.
that might have something to do with creationists arguing that every creature that ever lived should be preserved and fossilized and easily found.
Remember the gaps?
ROTFLOL!!
I've seen several of those!
I'm not certain they'll recover DNA. The remnants of proteins, maybe, but not DNA. If the cells she's found are red blood cells, there won't be any DNA to recover any way.
Probably wouldn't last all that long. T. Rex wasn't much bigger than a modern-day elephant, mass-wise, and probably could be brought down with a decent elephant gun, or a lot of rounds from a lesser weapon.
Which is a mischaracterization of what creationists really argued, which was that if the fossil record was the slow deposition occuring over millions of years that evolutionists said it was, there ought to be a lot more record of transition fossils that we see.
There has been movement by the Evolutionists towards the creationist position by acknowledging that the record is less of a slow deposition and more the record of catastrophic events.
And those gaps are still there.
I'm trying to imagine anyone rolling on the floor while laughing silently.
Well, okay. I can see how this performs the valuable service of assuring everyone you're not a mime. ;O)
WOW.
It seems to me that eventually you would be able to work backwards from proteins. Like breaking a cypher.
AMEN! with all those we've smashed on the highways, to mutate them into Rex's could give them the opportunity for vengence!
Are you aware of how many we do see? Would you care to guess at the number?My point is you can't simultaneously moan about the poor quality of fossils and the problems of reconstructing entire creatures out of a few fragments, then argue that fossilization is so commonplace that there should be an easily accessible record of everything. Either fossilization is an unusual event, leading to a fragmentary record, or not.
I spent a good many hours as a child digging holes in the woods for various war games. I never encountered an animal bone while digging, even though there were countless live animals all around.
And the 70 million year old virus that has been trapped in this tissue and was released by this "demineralization" process has now infected the entire staff of this facility. There is no creature currently alive with any immunity to this virus.
The gestation period is roughly one year from exposure. The first group of researchers were exposed 11 months ago and will start dying in one month. They have been infecting everyone they come in contact with since then. By this time 98% of the worlds animal population has been exposed. The mortality rate will be roughly 98%.
Have a nice day.
Good point! I'd imagine someone would appear like a fish out of water if they tried laughing silently while flopping around on the floor....;-)
It's always amused me that the people who lived in the days when God spoke directly to them were so willful and disobedient. I guess familiarity breeds contempt, even for deities.
Not to mention really long tongues.
No, I'd put a classified ad in the carnivore trader, or maybe give it to a pet shop. By then it would need a bigger cage anyway. And lots more meat.
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