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Scientists Have Found An Ancient Fossilized Mosquito Full Of Blood (46 Million Years OLD)
BI ^ | 10-14-2013 | Jennifer Welsh

Posted on 10/14/2013 8:54:39 PM PDT by blam

Scientists Have Found An Ancient Fossilized Mosquito Full Of Blood

Jennifer Welsh
Oct. 14, 2013, 5:37 PM

Blood engorged mosquito

Researchers have just published an exciting find: a 46-million-year-old mosquito full of blood. Next stop "Jurassic Park"? Not so fast.

The find is really interesting because it's the first example of blood-feeding in these ancient insects. We hadn't had clear evidence of when this began until now.

They found the mosquito in shale sediments in Montana.

They first found the presence of iron in the female mosquito's belly, then used a non-destructive technique to study the molecules inside the find. They were able to tell that the iron was bound in a heme molecule, the molecule that lets the molecule hemoglobin transport oxygen.

Dale Greenwalt, of the Smithsonian Institution described the find in the journal Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences on Oct. 14.

"This shows that details of a blood-sucking mosquito can be nicely preserved in a medium other than amber," George Poinar, who studies fossilized insects at Oregon State University in Corvallis, told Nature's Ed Yong. "It also shows that some porphyrin compounds in vertebrate blood can survive under the right conditions for millions of years."

Similar blood compounds have been found in ancient dinosaur bones.

That being said, there are still plenty of reasons "Jurassic Park" is very unlikely.

First, amber-preserved insects don't keep DNA intact even over thousands of years, let alone millions. Secondly, the insect used in "Jurassic Park" wasn't actually a blood-sucking variety of mosquito. Third, we've discovered that the half life of DNA is only about 520 years, not nearly long enough for there to be enough DNA left after millions ofyears.

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alreadyextinct; amber; cretaceous; dalegreenwalt; fossil; fossilmosquito; fossils; georgepoinar; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; jurassic; jurassicpark; jurassicworld; lookbackinamber; montana; mosquito; pachycephalosaurus; paleontology; porphyrincompounds; smithsonian
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1 posted on 10/14/2013 8:54:39 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam

46 million years old my arse!


2 posted on 10/14/2013 8:57:05 PM PDT by Artcore
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To: blam

How about the t-rex bone they found with the residual muscle cells? “Still pliable,” they said. I still haven’t heard a satisfactory explanation for that...after millions of years, it should have been beyond dust.


3 posted on 10/14/2013 9:00:00 PM PDT by Thorliveshere (I wish I lived in Texas.)
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To: blam

Max Baucus material?


4 posted on 10/14/2013 9:07:49 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Artcore

Yep.

And, they know it’s “46 million years old,” how, exactly? The fickle “carbon dating” and other wildly inconsistent radiometric dating methods? Yeah, right.


5 posted on 10/14/2013 9:08:24 PM PDT by WXRGina (The Founding Fathers would be shooting by now.)
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To: Artcore

Another shoot from the hip for the evolutoinist. They are really pushing the envelope on these finds. Why haven’t they found a fossilized bigfoot?


6 posted on 10/14/2013 9:08:39 PM PDT by Busko (The only thing that is certain is that nothing is certain.)
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To: blam

Clone it up! (like we need more bloodsuckers)


7 posted on 10/14/2013 9:09:33 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: blam

I seem to recall a book with this plot...


8 posted on 10/14/2013 9:11:50 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: blam

Nah. Doesn’t look a day over 30 mill.....


9 posted on 10/14/2013 9:18:27 PM PDT by bobby.223 (Retired up in the snowy mountains of the American Redoubt and it's a GREAT life!)
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To: SunkenCiv

ping


10 posted on 10/14/2013 9:32:40 PM PDT by SteveH (First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.)
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To: blam

Slap it flat!


11 posted on 10/14/2013 9:37:57 PM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: blam

Looks like they had democrats way back when (blood sucking parasites)


12 posted on 10/14/2013 9:47:34 PM PDT by Mom MD
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To: blam

That’s funny. Why didn’t mosquitoes evolve in 45 million years?


13 posted on 10/14/2013 10:19:46 PM PDT by garjog (Obama: making the world safe for Sharia.)
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To: garjog

A parasite is always going to be a parasite. Just ask the folks at WalMart.


14 posted on 10/14/2013 10:32:11 PM PDT by CT (Obama is the product of a shiftless press, LoFoVo, and the conquest of Soviet style public education)
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To: garjog
That’s funny. Why didn’t mosquitoes evolve in 45 million years?

Exactly! When something doesn't make sense (like abiogenesis, macro-evolution or the ACA), it's usually because it does not make sense!

15 posted on 10/14/2013 10:33:17 PM PDT by jimmyray
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To: blam

Intriguing find.

Don’t know why some people are having trouble with its cited age. There are skeletons in the Natural History Museum that are way older.


16 posted on 10/14/2013 11:51:44 PM PDT by agere_contra (I once saw a movie where only the police and military had guns. It was called 'Schindler's List'.)
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To: Artcore

Artcore: You have one very old butt, my friend. Do you sit on a pillow or have a blow-up ring?


17 posted on 10/15/2013 12:00:47 AM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: blam

Gotta show this to my son. We were just talking about Jurassic Park and amber on Monday. Thanks for posting.


18 posted on 10/15/2013 2:25:03 AM PDT by beaversmom
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Note: this topic was posted 10/14/2013. Thanks blam.

19 posted on 04/13/2014 2:40:50 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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"This shows that details of a blood-sucking mosquito can be nicely preserved in a medium other than amber," George Poinar, who studies fossilized insects at Oregon State University... "It also shows that some porphyrin compounds in vertebrate blood can survive under the right conditions for millions of years." Similar blood compounds have been found in ancient dinosaur bones... the half life of DNA is only about 520 years, not nearly long enough for there to be enough DNA left after millions of years.

20 posted on 04/13/2014 2:48:18 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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