Posted on 10/23/2012 10:22:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
RALEIGH—Twenty years ago, paleontologist Mary Schweitzer made an astonishing discovery. Peering through a microscope at a slice of dinosaur bone, she spotted what looked for all the world like red blood cells. It seemed utterly impossible—organic remains were not supposed to survive the fossilization process—but test after test indicated that the spherical structures were indeed red blood cells from a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex. In the years that followed, she and her colleagues discovered other apparent soft tissues, including what seem to be blood vessels and feather fibers. But controversy accompanied their claims. Skeptics argued that the alleged organic tissues were instead biofilm—slime formed by microbes that invaded the fossilized bone.
Schweitzer and her colleagues have continued to amass support for their interpretation. The latest evidence comes from a molecular analysis of what look to be bone cells, or osteocytes, from T. rex and Brachylophosaurus canadensis. The researchers isolated the possible osteocytes and subjected them to several tests. When they exposed the cell-like structures to an antibody that targets a protein called PHEX found only in bird osteocytes* (birds are descended from dinosaurs), the structures reacted, as would be expected of dinosaur osteocytes. And when the team subjected the supposed dinosaur cells to other antibodies that target DNA, the antibodies bound to material in small, specific regions inside the apparent cell membrane.
Furthermore, using a technique called mass spectrometry, the investigators found amino acid sequences of proteins in extracts of the dinosaur bone that matched sequences from proteins called actin, tubulin and histone4 that are present in the cells of all animals. Although some microbes have proteins that are similar to actin and tubulin, the researchers note that soil-derived E. coli as well as sediments that surrounded the two dinosaur specimens failed to bind to the actin and tubulin
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
These are not just stretchy ligaments with identifiable proteins, but flexible transparent branching blood vessels, containing an ooze that could be squeezed out like toothpaste. And inside these vessels were the easily identifiable remains of red blood cells, even showing the nuclei, typical of reptiles .
Anything other than questioning their time line.
Really interesting, thanks for posting.
Anything other than questioning their time line.
Do you have a ping list for these great nature/science articles you find?
If you do, please add me.
In other words, is it a cosmic joke played by an amused God (God made it all in a past much closer than mankind thinks, with things mankind can look at and speculate that things are much older), or did diosuars exist 60,000,000 years ago AND live well into the age when mankind also roamed the earth.
OR, is it something no one has thought of yet?
VERY neat stuff. I wonder how many other soft tissue remains have been missed by people who KNEW they could not be found?
I don't think He is amused or playing a joke. He told us this all happened about 10,000 years or so ago. He also told us the firmament was separated by water; but "settled science" just "knew" the earth was flat. I don't think it was a cosmic joke that Columbus didn't sail off the edge of the earth either.
Here is another to add to your collection:
Extraordinary Evidence that Dinosaurs Lived with Man - Dr. Don Patton (The Record of the Rocks)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWe3cteDuBc&feature=related
Or does it just mean that under certain conditions, some fragmentary bits of tissue can remain reactive much longer than we would have thought?
So, Young Earth Evolution it is.
LOL.
Actually, the only thing that the article hints at is a scientific proof for evolution.
Funny how the promoters of ignorance ignored that part.
LOL, you can’t keep your expectations high with such crowds...
I’m amazed that any kind of organic matter (of living origin) can survive 70 million years. I wonder, has radioisotopic dating been done on the samples?
And then made the Uranium appear to be 4.5 billion years old?
Please provide some examples from truly learned men from any era that actually thought the Earth was flat.
RE: does this mean that timelines for dinosaurs are incorrect, or does it mean the dinosuars existed well past the timeline that was given?
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It’s really hard to answer that question. All we can do is make educated guesses based on the current evidence.
An obvious question arises from Schweitzer’s work: is it even remotely plausible that blood vessels, cells, and protein fragments can exist largely intact over 68 million years?
While many consider such long-term preservation of tissue and cells to be very unlikely, the problem is that no human or animal remains are known with certainty to be 68 million years old.
If dinosaurs died off only just thousands years ago (instead of millions as is generally believed), would we expect the preservation of vessels, cells, and complex molecules of the type that Schweitzer reports for biological tissues historically known to be just thousands of years old?
Many studies of Egyptian mummies and other humans of this old age (confirmed by historical evidence) show all the sorts of detail Schweitzer reported in her T. rex. In addition to Egyptian mummies, the Tyrolean iceman, found in the Alps in 1991 and believed to be about 5,000 years old, shows such incredible preservation of DNA and other microscopic detail.
So, I would guess that answering “yes” isn’t really stretching it based on the evidence we’re seeing thus far.
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