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.
Nope, but Einstein was right on the laws of physics. And I'll trust E=mc2 over a bunch of unread Young Earthers who say it isn't true.
Those guys think they can get around the mountain of evidence disproving their beliefs if they get us to believe that the speed of light used to be really really fast, but then slowed down real quick to trick us into believing the universe is about a million times older than it actually is.
Some of the Young Earthers are disciples of the great PT Barnum. The rest of you are suckers.
You can say whatever you want, but you're wrong. The speed of light through a vacuum is a constant.
The guidance is natural selection. It works awfully well. It works so well that computer scientists have mimicked the concept in order to make computer programs run much better. It's called evolutionary computation.
There’s simply no spinning out of it...WAAAAAAAY too many of your fellow liberals have stomped their feet about it and have seen to it by now.
Yeah, no, not a liberal but thanks for playing.
All I will say is that we don’t know what we don’t know.
Even Einstein understood that.
>>You can say whatever you want, but you’re wrong. The speed of light through a vacuum is a constant.<<
:)
I did not say the speed of light through a vacuum was constant. How can I be wrong about something I never said?
Bingo...if not for the judiciary, NEA and insecure liberals with multiple God hang-ups, evolution would be nothing more than that quackery contraption designed to cure hiccups in a curiosity shop museum on the middle shelf in desperate need of a good dusting.
Like I said, you can teach your kids whatever you want. I’m not demanding anything, except that you work on your reading comprehension.
By the way, if you home school your kids, what do teach them about the age of the Earth? It’s obvious that you don’t know (geologists do), but do you hand them an Answers In Genesis pamphlet or just punt?
When you teach your kids conservatism, science...
do you break out NEA and ACLU pamphlets that a single cell over ga-jillions of years grew into giraffes, elephants...human beings...with no input or design and anyone that disagrees is to be sued?
Do you teach them that Chrissy Fit Matthews and algore with their “debate is over” and “settled science” nonsense are great conservatives?
Do you teach your kids it’s conservative to believe people are nothing more than poo-flinging soulless great apes? Chrissy Fit Matthews exclaims it’s “settled science” after all and makes a wonderful case out of himself actually...not exactly poo flinging but spittle, I guess because he’s “evolved”?
Do you teach them that when a group of people get together and play pretend there’s a genuine questioning and criticizing review process of evolution and even call it “peer review”; really is actual science?
Do you teach them that it’s conservative to ridcule Christianity?
Do you teach them that it’s the conservative position that any and every examination of evolution outside the accepted circle and clique of the selected few “real scientists”... is always to be attacked and labeled as a religious assault on science, rather true or not?
But above all GR...
Do you seriously still labor under the delusion that conservatives on FR don’t fully understand you’re a closet liberal that might as well be dressed in a colorful clown outfit, with large orange curly hair under a bright purple derby, with giant yellow floppy shoes, a red on white polka dot blazer, green highwater pants with a giant sunflower on your lapel that in the center in neon lights flashes...
Obama 2008?
(btw, geologist...you were pinged because I’d like to know what an actual geologist thinks, not about the liberal sideshow here mind you, but about your expertise...since “geologists know” earth age after all!)
Thanks for the ping!
Two thumbs up for advancing the liberal cause!
I'm curious....has anyone confused you with helter skelter?
And what IS an Alter Kaker exactly? Is it like alternate universe, or alternate reality?
Wow, this is an argument?
Not once in your rambling post did you come close to a coherent thought.
I'm not sure what Chris Matthews has to do with evolution, even though you mentioned him twice in your hissy fit. Maybe one of your more well-spoken friends can shine some light on the Matthews-Evolution principle.
I did like the "poo-flinging soulless great ape" term though; not only is it funny, but it encapsulates your gross misunderstanding of everything about evolutionary biology.
Look TP, I don't really care what other Freepers think, so I'm not "laboring" under any delusions. But what I do know is that even your creationist compatriots know you're a total ignoramus when it comes to all of the issues discussed here today.
Ummmm, this is exactly what's so humorous to me...I suppose you guys will never understand not all folks are locked into the liberal black hole of smarter than a 5th grader mentation, eh Einstein!?
Poor chap!
In fact, I'll bet you thought I was postulating that we could really build cars that could drive the speed of light. Ha!
Wow...and now you're a regular mind freak! Say...what's your carnival name?
You're always a hoot at your own expense.
Like I said....poor chap!
I've honestly never encountered anyone more proud to know less. You're a genuine grade-A internet troll.
No, nobody has ever confused me with helter skelter.
If its humorous, what's the answer?
Don't know?
Big surprise.
I know science isn't your "thing".
awwwwwwww...your thin skinned entry into the sir-project-alot entry has been duly noted.
Stay away from pmsnbc?
Hang out with actual conservatives on FR more and avoid DU and DC?
I don't know the answer...but I do know it's not an easy one and you'll most likely need the professional services of an extractionist and a cult de-programmer...
I know science isn't your "thing".
I've got to get up relativly soon and make a living at it actually, via hospice nursing....;)
So, I'm a little tired of your arrogant teenage displays of what you think you know and allotments for people to teach their kids as they see fit and so on and so on...ad boredom infinatum
soooo...
toodles...no, not a jab at a good clown name for you GR...just...
nite nite!
It is an easy answer, and it has nothing to do with evolution or the "Temple of Darwin". Any 6th grader who's studied special relativity for 5 minutes DOES know the answer.
So who's the clown?
COOL!
metmom posted some good stuff about the moon orbiting the sun...and the evos are like devolving into the common ancestors of crickets the last couple of days over it.
You’re exactly right about what we know.
It’s fascinatiing...pluto lost it’s planethood, but pluto has been pluto just like it is now for a long time. What changed was man’s understanding of it...not Pluto.
Equally fascinating is not all astronomers agreed with the change and the politics involved with said change is quite telling.
Liberals think someone gave them the keys to science. No one did.
Good stuff!
Your pal had a Republican on his ‘HardBall’ show one night flinging spit all over the camera that evolution is “settled science”....exactly like algore said the debate is over for global warming.
Sooooo, OF COURSE you don’t know what Chrissy Fit has to do with your cult! No surprise there!
There’s no gross misunderstanding on my part...more than once, several of your cohorts have demanded human beings be classified as great apes...including Chrissy Fit.
Again...with all the stuff you know...are you seeig my mail box flooded with my “creationist compatriots” telling me all this stuff you know?
Of course I wouldn't know; I don't watch HardBall. If you hate MSNBC so much, why are you watching it?
Again...with all the stuff you know...are you seeig my mail box flooded with my “creationist compatriots” telling me all this stuff you know?
I don't know what this question means. How would I know what's in your mail box? Why would I care?
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