image: Xiaoya Ma
Posted on 11/08/2015 8:03:35 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Conventional wisdom says that brains don't fossilize, but these seven fossilized brains beg to differ.
An arthropod called Fuxianhuia protensa, which lived on the ocean floor about 520 million years ago, would have looked much like today's shrimp, say paleontologists. Thanks to fossilized remains, we now know that its brain was also similar to those of today's crustaceans. A team led by paleontologist Xiaoya Ma examined seven specimens of the now -- extinct creature with a scanning electron microscope, and they found traces of a brain -- in the form of a flattened carbon film -- in each one...
Of course, brains are squishy, and fossilized remains are usually buried under many layers of very heavy sediment. Why weren't these tiny brains simply squashed into oblivion? Arthropods, it turns out, have very dense brains; their cells are closely packed, which makes it easier for them to withstand pressure without just bursting.
As sediments piled up atop the dead F. protensa, the pressure would have slowly pressed the water out of their brain cells, causing the tissue to gradually flatten without losing its structure. Then the heat and pressure from millions of years of burial would have caused that tissue to give up its oxygen and hydrogen, leaving behind a flat film of carbon in the shape of an ancient arthropod brain.
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
image: Xiaoya Ma
Which democrat was it?
It couldn’t have been a Democrat. They found traces of a brain, after all.
“Scientists Have Found Fossilized Brains”
Took them long enough. What a bunch of TOTAL IDIOTS. Just about anyone here could have told them where to look.
http://websta.me/location/574820448
Okay, No Joe Biden jokes. Too easy.
True. But they did have to use an electron microscope.
Too easy...
Besides you can’t fossilize what ain’t there
There were a lot of fossilized brains where I worked.
Were the scientists examining fed “workers”?
But -- of course they do...
“Yes, it’s time. “
No, those are tines.
Sorry.
What government agency were they working for?
I couldn’t tell what Democrat it could be, based on their presidential candidates it could be any one of the old fossils.
Congress. Both sides of the isle.
“In 2012, a Fuxianhuia fossil has been described with exceptional preservation of brain and optic lobes.[5] The shape and complexity is roughly corresponding to that of a modern malacostracan brain.[5] In general, the Fuxianhuia brain shows the same tripartite morphology of Malacostraca, Chilopoda and Insecta, indicating that such an organization could be precedent to the divergence between these clades.[5]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuxianhuia#Brain_anatomy
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