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 ...
Taht’s nothign — all they had to do was look around DC.
2012: Nature
Complex brain and optic lobes in an early Cambrian arthropod (Fuxianhuia protensa)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v490/n7419/full/nature11495.html
;’)
Maybe it was the agency that pushes global warming.
Thanks ETL.
I didn’t even know that simple organisms like these had what can be considered a ‘brain’.
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
When I read that headline I thought they had dug up some of my relatives.
Hill needs a shave.
If that is real...
...good grief.
Why were the scientists in the Salon.com editorial offices?
LOL!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.