Oldest Fossil Protein Sequenced [from Neanderthal]

Max Planck Society ^ | 08 March 2005 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

An international team, led by researchers at the Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany, have extracted and sequenced protein from a Neanderthal from Shanidar Cave, Iraq dating to approximately 75,000 years old. It is rare to recover protein of this age, and remarkable to be able to determine the constituent amino acid sequence. This is the oldest fossil protein ever sequenced. Protein sequences may be used in a similar way to DNA, to provide information on the genetic relationships between extinct and living species. As ancient DNA rarely survives, this new method opens up the possibility of determining these relationships in much older fossils which no longer contain DNA (PNAS Online Early Edition, March 8, 2005).

The research, published in PNAS, presents the sequence for the bone protein osteocalcin from a Neanderthal from Shanidar Cave, Iraq, as well as osteocalcin sequences from living primates (humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans). The team found that the Neanderthal sequence was the same as modern humans. In addition, the team found a marked difference in the sequences of Neanderthals, human, chimpanzee and orangutan from that of gorillas, and most other mammals. This sequence difference is at position nine, where the crystalline amino acid hydroxyproline is replaced by proline (an amino acid that is found in many proteins). The authors suggest that this is a dietary response, as the formation of hydroxyproline requires vitamin C, which is ample in the diets of herbivores like gorillas, but may be absent from the diets of the omnivorous primates such as humans and Neanderthals, orangutans and chimpanzees. Therefore, the ability to form proteins without the presence of vitamin C may have been an advantage to these primates if this nutrient was missing from the diets regularly, or from time to time.

The skull of the 75,000 year old Neanderthal from the Shanidar cave in Iraq.

This research opens up the exciting possibility of extracting and sequencing protein from other fossils, including earlier humans, as a means of determining the relationships between extinct and living species, and to better understand the phylogenetic relationships.

[orionblamblam]

I decided to see if "Meteor orbits and dust", NASA SP-135 was available online on the NASA technical report server. Sadly, it is not available digitally (yet). Here is the reference the server has for it, though:

Meteor orbits and dust
Hawkins, G. S.
NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI)
NASA-SP-135 , 19670101; Jan 1, 1967
Concentrations and orbital calculations of meteors and meteoritic and extraterrestrial dust particles - conference
Accession ID: 67N32038
Document ID: 19670022709
No Digital Version Available - Order This Document from CASI
Updated/Added to NTRS: 2004-11-03
---
Note the numerous references to "1967."

A brief Google search for the same docuemtn, however, finds this:
http://www.creationism.org/ackerman/AckermanYoungWorldChap16.htm
"IT'S A YOUNG WORLD AFTER ALL"
Bibliography
Hawkings, G. S. (ed.). Meteor Orbits and Dust, Smithsonian Contributions Astrophysics, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution and NASA, 1976).

Note two important things:
1: The date is wrong (the 67 is transposed to 76 - possibly accidental)
2: The editors name is mis-spelled.


The book this bibliography is for bases its first chapter on the fraudulent mis-interpretation of the lunar dust data.

More information on the Creationist moon-dust scam is here:
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/moondust.html
"Richard Bliss of the ICR has since produced another number, a million tons, this time giving a reference to "COMITE Speciale De I'annee Geophysique International, Moscow, August 1985". That sounds pretty recent, until you realize that the International Geophysical Year was held in 1957-1958. The committee report was published in 1958, not 1985."

Interesting that *again* the Creationist in question transposes the publication date. One could perhaps assume accident, except that in both cases, the transposition *conveniently* makes the date much more recent.

With such willingness on the part of many Creationist authors to fabricate data, and such a willingness by Creationism believers to believe such incorrect data without serious investigation (or even *basic* investigation... took about 45 seconds on Google to figure out not only that the moon dust arguement was a lie, but where, how and when it started).... why should anyone honestly and seriously take the Creationist viewpoint seriously?

A scientist who fabricated fraudulent lines of arguement like these, or one who diligently supported such arguements, would be laughed out of the profession as soon as found out. But Creationists still take Gish seriously. It boggles the mind.

[clearsight]

Now.....complete.....your..... thought..... by.... telling us "all together now" what....it....really....is. Is it a bird ? Is it plane ? No, it is a........ and thanks for telling us what it is....

[clearsight]

Do you think they maliciously told the lie with foreknowledge????

[SlowBoat407]

I've only been here a shade longer than you, and I am already well aware of the running gag that the MSM (that's Main Stream Media for you, clearsight) calls FR a "blog", and that FReepers (that's what we call people who post on Free Republic, clearsight) are constantly correcting them by saying, "It's not a blog: it's a discussion forum!"

So for you, clearsight, you're welcome.

[blam]

"The response to your statement is that nobody really cares that a small percentage of irrational people believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old."

DITTO!

[orionblamblam]

After this length of time using the same arguement... yes, I do. Had it been an honest mistake, those who made the mistake and promulgated it would have made retractions.

Givign them the most charity I can leads me to believe that even at their most honest, they weren't that honest. The initial claims of thousands of feet of dust were based on faulty math... and apparetnlyfautly math based on very *simple* math. The sort of error that can easily be made.... but will be easily caught when you check your work. Sinc ethat error was not corrected, it is reasonable to conclude:
1: The math was done once, and was not checked because it supported an existing bias. This is scientifically dishonest.
or...
2: The math was checked and found to be flawed, but the original flawed answer was used because it was preferable. This is also flawed.

This is just one instance. However, the world of YEC is *full* of such things. The YE concept is based on a foundation of falsehoods. It strains credulity to believe that people so clearly intelligent (as shown by how successful many are are making money from this) would be so consistently stupid. Dishonesty is a far simpler and more likely answer.

[clearsight]

Will read over "young world after all". Believe they retract moon dust argument at end of that particular chapter. Hmmmm........

[clearsight]

– UPDATE 2002 - Added for the Web Version – A recent review of the latest and best evidence by creation scientists Andrew A. Snelling and David E. Rush indicates that there is much less dust in the earth-moon vicinity that earlier estimated. As a result most creationists now believe that the moon-dust argument should not be used. For more information on the latest data check the link: . This author agrees with the position of Answers in Genesis and does not currently use the moon-dust argument. However we need to remember that the evolutionist conception of the solar system's origin assumes much more dust in the past than is currently present. Finally, there are many factors known to remove cosmic dust as time passes (see chapter 3).

[orionblamblam]

That's a non-retraction retraction ("Well, we were wrong... but the evolutionsts view is wrong, so we were right anyway.")

And it only took them *how* many years to post that *waaaay* down at the bottom? While leaving the lies and falsehoods and BS for all the world to skim over and get the wrong ideas about up top?

If you write a chapter of a book based on an entirely wrong premise, if you find out it's just dead wrong, you don't come out with a new edition that reapeats it all but puts a tiny disclaimer on it. If you are honest, you remove or replace that chapter entirely, preferably with a disclaimer at the end of the new chapter saying "anybody with a first edition... I'm sorry, but I was wrong."

Out of sheer politeness, they should have nailed the disclaimer to the *top*.


Oh, and a little mental exercise for you: read through the disclaimer your excerpted, and see if you can find the massive logic flaw with it. There is an internal inconsistancy that's just damend funny.

[clearsight]

Yes, there seems to be some double speak, CYA and keep your eye on the walnut shells while I move them around. I suppose if I slipped on my left foot I would shift my weight to the right. Interesting, the mechanism of dust diminishment was not mentioned in the earlier argument, but the weight of the original argument relied heavily on the original math, which apparently was wrong. Probably sloppy penmanship, a misread decimal place. We always tell our engineers to write legibly because a life may be in the balance down the road.

[clearsight]

Ok, for the next chapter in this book......
Hope you don't mind going through this...

The Geologic Column as a Meteor-Shower Gauge
According to the theory of evolution and its requirement of eons of time for earth history, the "geologic column" has been gradually building up for hundreds of millions of years. The geologic column is the name geologists give to the layers of sedimentary rock we can see, for example, when a hill is cut away to make a roadbed for a highway. One of the most spectacular views of such stratified layers is provided by the Grand Canyon. Evolutionists believe that these rock layers have been building up gradually for millions of years.
If these millions of years were a reality there would have been countless numbers of meteors encountering the earth's atmosphere. As previously mentioned, the vast majority of these meteors would have burned up before reaching the ground, but a small percentage would reach the earth's surface each year as meteorites. With the passage of vast amounts of evolutionary time, these accumulating meteorites would be incorporated into the geologic column, and there should be many of them contained in the rock layers today. Paleontologists and other scientists doing research in the geologic rock layers should frequently encounter meteorites.
Most creationist scientists, however, do not believe that the geologic column has been building up, and thus been open to meteors, for millions of years. They argue, on the basis of a great deal of data and evidence, that the geologic column was laid down quickly under catastrophic conditions and thus has not been exposed to meteorites for very long. If this is the case, there would be very few meteorites in the geologic column and finding one would be a rare occurrence.
On the basis of the opposing recent-creation and evolution models, we have two distinctly different predictions about the number of meteorites in the geologic column. The evolution model predicts a high number of meteorites, which should turn up fairly often in geological research. Recent-creationists, by contrast, expect a very small number of meteorites in the geologic column. Thus, finding one should be an extremely rare event.
What do the data show? A clear result in favor of a recent creation. One survey of the literature a few years ago failed to turn up a single case of a meteorite being found in the geologic column.1 The meteorite clock reads clearly to the effect that the earth is not very old.2

---

Upon reading this over it appears to me, not to be a good argument for either side. Just to many variables. First, finding intact meterorites of lets say just for discussion the size of large deformed marbles would not be easy, since in most cases even if it did reach the ground and impact, the thing would pulverize as it traveled tens of feet into the ground maybe even driving through two or three layers of sediment depending on the density of the deposits. Second, the rates these things enter varies greatly and percentage that make it to impact is relatively small. Although, if my memory serves me, satellite's were employed to keep everyone honest who signed up on the nuclear test band treaty which soon after their employment began to register high energy releases. Since no one was testing nuclear bombs it was determined that the register of energy releases was meteors impacting the surface of the earth. The rate was surprisingly high as I remember. Thirdly the creation concept of worldwide destruction would really jumble up any evidence if it actually was abundant prior to the catastrophe. Again, (meteors plus or minus) not a good argument or indicator for either side.

[orionblamblam]

> First, finding intact meterorites of lets say just for discussion the size of large deformed marbles would not be easy,

Of course not. Would you recognize that the nondescript marble-sized stone in your hand was a meteorite? The pictures below are from a website selling stony meteorites. Can you honestly say yopu'd know these weren't jsut rocks? A nickle-iron meteorite, cut apart and acid treated is virtually impossible to fake. But these look like plain rocks to me.



If you want to hunt for meteorits, there are two typres of places to go:

1: Near known meteorite impact sites, such as Meteor Crater in Arizona. Good luck picking out the stony meteorite from Just Rocks, of course... 2: Atop glaciers, especially in Antarctica. A rock on top of a vast ice field stands a good chance to have been dropped there.

> Since no one was testing nuclear bombs it was determined that the register of energy releases was meteors impacting the surface of the earth.

Those were explosions in the upper atmosphere, not on the surface. Those high-altitude explosions regularly get into the kiloton-yield-range.

[clearsight]

"Those were explosions in the upper atmosphere, not on the surface. Those high-altitude explosions regularly get into the kiloton-yield-range."

Sorry, to misquote, it has been to long since I read that article. Amazing how much energy is released from a small meteorite impacting the atmosphere.

[SunkenCiv]

I just sequenced my DNA (euphemism) and I'm beat. Time for bed.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
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[MacDorcha]

Ok, that was one of the funnier pings.

I'll read it :p

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, it's great to be appreciated in my own time (y'know, before I go too far and get banned ;').

[Dustbunny]

Interestingly, the general consensus (prior to Darwin's theory) as to the age of the earth was around 6,000 years based primarily on average population growth of societies and the number of generation from Adam.

My consensus has always been that to GOD a minute could be a million years to us earth bound Bible reading bumpkins. (grin) The six days it took him to create the heavens and the earth would then translate into a slightly longer period of time than 6,000 years.

I frequently got into trouble while in school because I never could swallow that 6,000 year time line.

According to all the email questionnaires I have taken I can qualify to be older than dirt so I can make these assumptions.

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. The Neandertal Enigma by James Shreeve in local libraries Frayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127] To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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