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.
You stick to the grade school questions....right now the adults are discussing this:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6092-speed-of-light-may-have-changed-recently.html
“Who’s the clown”....
really?
Let’s see... RobRoy has made the point that the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know as much as we’d like to think...
meanwhile someone with the initials GR thinks he knows everything!
Ok, we get it. Anyone who disagrees with you must be a “liberal”......
Now move on to your next argument.
Obviously you don’t get it...read post #200, for instance.
Don’t look now, but there are more and more people wandering in and out of these threads that are making these same very astute observations RFE...
liberals are likely to be evolutionists and vice versa...
while conservatives...
well... not so much. Obviously.
Nearly 100% of liberals are evolutionists in fact...if not 100%.
While not all evolutionists are liberals, there simply aren’t any creationists that are liberals.
Not that I’m aware of anyway.
The same tired failed evo-arguments here are the same things people are noticing liberals doing in places like DU, and other places...
and there’s a crossover...alot of the closet loiberals on here are for rabid separation of church and state lunacy to the point crosses should be removed from federal cemeteries, crosses removed from town logos...etc. etc. etc.
“religious attacks on science” projections, endless “real scientists” strawmen and the like. No effort is needed to recognize it. Liberals do all the work themselves...all I do is point it out!
Sheesh, if ya don’t like being called a liberal, then DON’T BE A LIBERAL silly!
One observer put it nicely...evos are like arguing with the kid you played cowboys and indians with...
the Indian slips up and dispatches with the cowboy and the cowboy squeals “no you missed” and runs off...
and when he grew up...
he got on FR and picked RFEngineer for a handle. ;)
Y’all are cute in your attention seeking projections though.
Someday, I’ll do a sir-project-alot chart for y’all! Like the NFL standings.
(*sigh* and yes, you’re on the list. ;))
Perhaps I’ll do a ping...but as of now...
where does the time go?
So you still haven't figured it out? I'll give you a hint; c is a constant.
What did you post about the moon orbiting the Sun?
It's finally happened; you've actually posted an intelligent comment on FreeRepublic.
Congratulations.
Uh-huh...and now that you know...crickets.
It's ok, I understand. I'd be embarassed by my poo-flinging "settled evolutionary science" great ape cousin too if I were you!
I don't watch hard boiled. I first discovered your buddy's antics on FR.
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.
Your argument is, according to evolution as so many argue it here anyway, means human beings are classified as great apes. The entire problem with evolution is more people understand it JUST FINE! The "gross misunderstanding" is that you don't have any idea what you're talking about, and pretend as if no one realizes it.
I don't know what this question means.
WHAT? You don't know something...AGAIN!? Twice in one post?
How would I know what's in your mail box? Why would I care?
Well, you made the comment:
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.
I was just trying to figure out how you came to such a conclusion...so why don't you tell us!?
Or, is it all that stuff you know turns out to be...well not so much!?
See boys and girls, this is what happens when you think you know so much. It's so confusing GR has out-witted himself! LOL!
Soooo, they merely plugged the machine in and bingo, they were good to go!?
No, what that's called is intelligent design.
I know you guys have allergic reactions to intelligence, but that's all it is.
So you still haven’t figured it out? I’ll give you a hint; c is a constant.
You haven’t read the link...it’s OK...I’ll give you tonight...I’m out tootles.
Fixed it for you.
Use of term “Liberal” - 10
Reason - 0
There.. fixed it.
Heh. Geology refutes young-Earth creationism? Geologists must be Darwinists too!
Man's understanding did not change. There was no new information about Pluto's age, composition, motion or location. Pluto's loss of planethood was pure semantics, a change in the definition of the word "planet." The only new science was a couple of centuries' worth of discoveries of other bodies orbiting the Sun -- there aren't just nine big orbiting rocks out there, but dozens.
Equally fascinating is not all astronomers agreed with the change and the politics involved with said change is quite telling.
Academics aren't unanimous on the definition of terms. Film at 11.
Liberals think someone gave them the keys to science. No one did.
There are no keys. Science isn't locked.
Indeed, how exactly do advocates of godless, souless ideologies fit into conservatism? Since when is "man has no soul" a conservative point of view? "Man has no soul" and "man is a meat-byproduct of random accidents" are the ideological bases for eugenics and various forms of inhuman totalitarianism -- the reduction of human beings to organic machines or beasts of burden with no intrinsic worth. It must be some kind of sick joke to call this "conservative". You might as well call Communism conservative. Like the cartoon?
Reading remains fundamental. You should try it sometime.
Let’s see... RobRoy has made the point that the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know as much as we’d like to think... meanwhile someone with the initials GR GGG thinks he knows everything!
Fixed it for you.
coming from you...I think GGG understands he’s spot on!
Indeed, how exactly do advocates of godless, souless ideologies fit into conservatism? Since when is “man has no soul” a conservative point of view? “Man has no soul” and “man is a meat-byproduct of random accidents” are the ideological bases for eugenics and various forms of inhuman totalitarianism — the reduction of human beings to organic machines or beasts of burden with no intrinsic worth. It must be some kind of sick joke to call this “conservative”. You might as well call Communism conservative. Like the cartoon?
They have no shame. It’s not so much that they’re just that disconnected as they’re the 5th column of FR.
The entire problem with evolution is more people understand it JUST FINE!
No, the entire problem is that people like you who are proud of their ignorance do not understand it. If you spent five minutes actually researching the theory you'd understand that classification of species is a small part of the mechanism.
You just keep embarrassing yourself; I think your creationist friends would agree. That's why I rarely see them makes comments to you, much less come to your defense. They don't want you on their team because it makes them look bad.
You get an F. You can't even answer a simple grade school question about relativity, but expect to be taken seriously.
Sad, but funny.
Sure there was new information...the scientists even said as much. They said the new information influenced their decision in fact.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-402099/Pluto-longer-planet-say-astronomers.html
Here they discuss UB 313, which they discovered in 2003 (or 2005?). If you want to argue man’s understanding of semantics changed...fine, but this isn’t the lesson to take from Pluto’s demotion.
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/10/why-pluto-is-no-longer-a-planet/
(A pretty fun article about why it’s a dwarf planet).
“Academics aren’t unanimous on the definition of terms. Film at 11”.
Well that’s one lesson I was referring to...although, I’m not so certain “academics” played 100% into the decision making process.
Liberals think someone gave them the keys to science. No one did.
“There are no keys. Science isn’t locked”.
Exactly, so when do you think liberals will begin to grasp such an astute observation...what with the global warming “debate is over” and “settled evolutionary science” we hear from algore and Chrissy Fit Matthews and the closet FR liberals ad nauseum?????
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