Posted on 10/10/2012 8:32:08 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
By comparing the specimens' ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.
The team predicts that even in a bone at an ideal preservation temperature of -5 °C, effectively every bond would be destroyed after a maximum of 6.8 million years. The DNA would cease to be readable much earlier -- perhaps after roughly 1.5 million years, when the remaining strands would be too short to give meaningful information.
"This confirms the widely held suspicion that claims of DNA from dinosaurs and ancient insects trapped in amber are incorrect," says Simon Ho, a computational evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney in Australia. However, although 6.8 million years is nowhere near the age of a dinosaur bone -- which would be at least 65 million years old -- "We might be able to break the record for the oldest authentic DNA sequence, which currently stands at about half a million years," says Ho...
"I am very interested to see if these findings can be reproduced in very different environments such as permafrost and caves," says Michael Knapp, a palaeogeneticist at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.
Moreover, the researchers found that age differences accounted for only 38.6% of the variation in DNA degradation between moa-bone samples. "Other factors that impact on DNA preservation are clearly at work," says Bunce. "Storage following excavation, soil chemistry and even the time of year when the animal died are all likely contributing factors that will need looking into."
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
John 5:39
Good post.
So if we are to believe the world is only 5,000 and some years old then your GOD is a trickster and liar. Personally my God’s time is his and has no relation to human time.
There was also an indication from one of you that your God is not smart enough to have invented evolution. You might keep an eye out for lightning bolts! In my not so humble opinion the two theories, evolution and creation fit together and support each other rather nicely.
And last, an over inflated ego is, I’m pretty sure, not viewed with approbation by GOD.
Uh... not even a close race there. And it's not implied, it's written down in the Bible.
God says, (paraphrasing) man is a complete idiot (continuously evil may have been his exact words).
So, here you are, today, with your faith in your god totally subservient to your belief in the words of men.
Well, I think you may have misunderstood what I was trying to communicate.
Each of us is allowed to have our own understanding with God. Each of us is allowed to have our own understanding of the Bible.
If you want BOOK, one VERSION, ONE UNIFORM RELIGION, go join the Muslims(not directed at you).
I think GOD finds it much more important that we behave like Christians than we argue about who is a Christian.
If your 'understanding' of the Bible gives you FAITH, then it is the correct understanding. BUT... that is your understanding, and nobody elses. It is unique. The bond with God is unique. You get out of it, what you put into it.
Three times is a charm.
Although... most people care about as much about the Ten Commandments, as they do about the Constitution, and probably couldn't quote more than one line of either one.
Sorry. It seems we are hijacking the thread with ‘religion’.
I’m guilty too.
I’m working on it , though.
Dude, check what FR stands for and then shut yer pie hole until you are ready to be civilized. Quit trying to stir the pot.
Maybe it has to do with your ‘understanding’ of half-life. (or mine?)
You have no idea how right you are.
Telling people to shut up because you disagree with them is a liberal tactic.
I believe in a Free Republic. Where people can disagree about perzactly how God did create the Universe.
/johnny
This is incredibly bad science writing.
What the writer should have said is the following.
ON AVERAGE, the average DNA molecule is unreadable after 1.5 million years. BUT, AND I EMPHASIS BUT. If you have 1 million cells with preserved DNA, you have a decent chance of finding a few cells with nearly perfect DNA even after 10 million years. AND if you are really lucky, you might even find something interesting at 100 million years.
The human body contains about 50 trillion cells so 1 million cells is not all that big a sample.
Please read post 71.
Bottom line, if you have 50 trillion cells to choose from, there is a really good chance to have good dna from a few cells, even at 1 billion years.
Plus, if you can get a cell with 3/4 of the dna intact and another cell with a different 3/4 intact, you can put the sequences together and get a decent copy.
It is like canabalizing parts from 5 old cars at the junk yard to get your old car to run.
Absolutely.
Science is about looking at the evidence, and figuring out how it happened. (we still have a long way to go). The pattern we find is not random.
Faith is in loving God because he made the Earth, not how, or when.
Besides, the time of existence of the Earth is not specified in the Bible, but is inferred from various books, various verses, and variable calendars. Saying that someone's interpretation of the meaning of various verses is GOD'S WORD, seems to be a bit mis-representative.
I think that what evolution is, and what creation is, are things that very few understand or agree on, and that is why the appear not to fit together to many.
LOL!
so you really believe there should be viable soft tissue with collagen and red blood cells with liquid components after room temp for 90 million years?
Obviously you are a true believe in the idea life was formed as an accident, and global warming is real.
If you destroy Genesis 1-11 you destroy the foundation for the rest of Scripture. Genesis 1-11 was taken literally by Jesus. Can’t get a higher authority than that. Again, you try to fit one of evolution’s schemes into a biblical narrative and you are at odds with God.
God is neither a trickster nor a liar. He is the sovereign of the universe and it’s His world. He can create it to look however He wants it to look - aged or not. But, it is His world. Our job is not to critique Him on how He did it but to bow to Him as Creator.
If you are going to ask a question allow one to answer. Don’t ask a question, then throw in an assumption in the form of a question - then answer the assumption and think you made a point.
I was at a tent meeting to reach our city yesterday. Helped to distribute God’s Word yesterday in hard copy form. What were you doing?
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