Ink found in Jurassic-era squid (150 mya squid "can be dissected as if they are living animals")

BBC ^ | August 19,2009

[GodGunsGuts]

Palaeontologists have drawn with ink extracted from a preserved fossilised squid uncovered during a dig in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

The fossil, thought to be 150 million years old, was found when a rock was cracked open, revealing the one-inch-long black ink sac.

A picture of the creature and its Latin name was drawn using its ink...

[ElectricStrawberry]

Depends on what definition of "protein" you're using.

They found amino acids, and some peptide chains, but no "intact proteins."

[brytlea]

It would be cool to know the chemical comp of the ink.

[brytlea]

First, it will not allow me to see that link without a password. Second, if you will read thru the thread, you will see that I already posted a link for the chemical comp of mollusk ink. :)

[ElectricStrawberry]

Yeah....I saw that later. Evidently, it’s the melanin that gives it the color.

That wouldn’t mean that the melanin is still intact in the fossil....could be degraded...depolymerized...I don’t know enough about melanin to know what gives it “pigment” qualities.

[Fichori]

“Has LeGrande recanted some of his other absurd assertions since then? Such as 'we are made of waves of nothing' and 'you can't prove the Earth is rotating', and 'the stars that you see in front of you could be behind you', etc?” [excerpt]

I think the stars being displaced 180°, went out of style with 2.1°

It sure was funny to watch people jump on the 2.1° bandwagon, just because they strongly disagreed with the YECers who were trying to dispel 2.1° (of course, when the wheels finally came off, they stuck around like the rats on the Titanic)

As far as I know, waves of nothing are still hip and the earth does turn.

[brytlea]

Yeah, I wish I knew more chemistry. But it would appear that melanin (or at least part of it) does not break down over long periods of time.

[count-your-change]

It's light absorbion in the visible range (400-700 nm) that gives the form of melanin its color from yellow to black.

It also absorbs light in the ultraviolet which is why lots of melanin (eumelanin) in the skin helps to protect from sunburn

[tpanther]

What?

[tacticalogic]

Why?