Posted on 09/16/2009 9:03:13 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Fresh Fossil Feather Nanostructures
by Brian Thomas, M.S.*
Bird feathers can contain pigmentation for a wide range of colors, with specific molecules reflecting certain hues when light touches them. They also can display “structural” colors, where the thicknesses of layers of cells and connective tissues are fine-tuned to refract certain colors.
Scientists recently described structural coloration that is still clearly discernible in well-preserved fossil feathers. Why do these fossil feathers have their original cell structures laid out in the original patterns if they are millions of years old?
In 1995, paleontologists Derek Briggs and Paul Davis provided an overview of fossil feathers from the 40 or so places on the globe where they were known to exist.1 Among their findings was that 69 percent of feather fossils are preserved not as impressions, but as carbon traces. This was verified by comparing the proportions of carbon in both the surrounding carbonaceous rock and the fossil within it, to the proportions of organically-derived carbon from the same items. They found that there was more organic carbon in the fossil than in the stone.
At that time, the researchers thought the carbon came from bacteria that had degraded the feather material and then remained placed in the feather’s outline. But 13 years later, Briggs and other colleagues showed clear evidence that these “bacterial cells” were actually melanosomes―the same microscopic, sausage-shaped, dark pigment-containing structures in today’s bird feathers―from the original feather.2
This means that the organic carbon in the melanosomes somehow avoided decay for millions of years, which contradicts “the well-known fact that the majority of organic molecules decay in thousands of years.”3
Briggs and his colleagues recently described fossil feathers from the German Messel Oil Shale deposits, which are famous for their remarkably well-preserved fossils. These not only contained organic carbon from melanosomes (not bacteria), but the melanosomes were still organized in their original spacing and layering. Thus, the “metallic greenish, bluish or coppery” colors that can be seen from different viewing angles, producing an iridescent sheen, may very well be similar to that of the original bird’s plumage.4
Biologists already know that “in order to produce a particular [structural] colour, the keratin thickness must be accurate to within about 0.05 μm (one twenty thousandth of one millimetre!).”5 Although the keratin had decayed from these fossil feathers, its layers of melanosomes remained laid out in similarly precise thicknesses. Thus, not only was the color preserved, but the melanosomes were still organized to within micrometers of their original positions.
Evolutionary geologists maintain that the Messel Shale was formed 47 million years ago. But with these colorful feather fossils—which retain not only the original molecules inside their original melanosomes, but also the architectural layout of these structures—evolutionists must invent some kind of magical preservation process that simply isn’t observed in the laboratory or in nature.
Without the assumption of millions of years, however, the fossil data begin to make much more sense. Fresh-looking fossil features point to a young world.
References
* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.
Article posted on September 16, 2009.
Ping!
Yes, and dont forget that ‘young’ star-light that was created to ‘look’ like ‘old’ star-light, billions of years old.
Creation "scientists" love to play pretend. They remind me of a Lord of the Rings fan claiming to be a real historian because he's studied all the ages of Middle Earth, or a Star Trek nerd claiming to be a linguistics expert because he speaks Klingon.
ping
Ad hominem arguments are also amusing, yes?
You are obviously unaware of the current state of creation cosmology. You might want to read the following to get caught up to speed:
http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter5.pdf
The 6,000 year old Earth brigade never shows up late.
I’m still waiting for the answer to: “What came first...the chicken or the egg?”
Considering everything started from some common point during the "big bag", There is no "older and younger" starlight. It's just moving further away, which also causes it to "stretch out" and change frequencies giving the illusion of Older and younger starlight.
Without the assumption of millions of years, however, the fossil data begin to make much more sense.
Especially those chicken bones the Chinese bury after eating a chicken for for dinner, which these fossil hunters then dig up and claim are millions of years old, AND the missing link.
Creation cosmologists have their telescopes pointed squarely at their own navels. You can't tell anyone with a straight face that a quasar that's visible 2.4 billion light years away is only 6,000 years old.
The chicken of course. Why, do you think the egg laid itself? You see, a male and a female chicken climbed out of the premadoral soup, and began laying eggs. That's how evolution theory works anyways. And this happened, -despite the odds of it happening even once being trillions and zillions against it- millions of times over.
Do you believe that humans existed at the same time as dinosaurs?
RU Series?
You think the light we think we're seeing from stars is actually from the Big Bang? It's just being stretched by some Divine stairmaster? Sunlight isn't actually from the Sun?
But, it wasn't 2.4 billion light years away 6,000 years ago. It started from the exact same spot all quasars did when nothing exploded and became everything.
Huh? You better think that through a little more. It'll dawn on you eventually.
The distant starlight problem is no longer problem for Creation Cosmology. May I suggest you google Dr. Russell Humphreys along with the words “starlight and time.” As you will see, it is quite possible for the Earth to be thousands of years old, and distant galaxies to be billions of years old, and yet owe their existence to the SAME creation event. It has to do with Einstein’s GR and gravitational time dilation.
Give the following layman’s link a read, and then PM me if you want to read the scientific papers that back up the same:
http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter5.pdf
You've confused creationism with evolution. Creationists believe -- ZAP -- on the fourth day, two chickens climbed out of the "premadoral [sic] soup" (my bad -- out of the "dust of the ground") and started laying eggs.
Scientists, on the other hand, don't think chickens evolved ex nihilo. They believe billions of small changes over billions of years led to birds with a mixture of primitive and derived traits that we can isolate as chickens. No generation of chickens looked much different from its parents, but changes built up over time.
Can you reconcile “six literal twenty-four hour days” with gravitionally dialated time?
“I’ll take immersed in oil for $1000, Alex.”
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