Wednesday 10 June 2015

Blood Vessels in ”75-Million-Year” Old Dinosaur Bone



Blood vessels could hardly last for 75 million years.




Joel Kontinen

There should be no miracles in a Darwinian world, but from time to time research either compels evolutionists to believe in them or to explain away the obvious conclusion based on the facts.

For several years, soft tissue in dinosaurs, marine creatures (read more here and here) and even birds (read more here and here) has been a lively research area and a hot topic. The latest discovery was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Here are the facts:

“Exceptionally preserved organic remains are known throughout the vertebrate fossil record, and recently, evidence has emerged that such soft tissue might contain original components. We examined samples from eight Cretaceous dinosaur bones using nano-analytical techniques; the bones are not exceptionally preserved and show no external indication of soft tissue. In one sample, we observe structures consistent with endogenous collagen fibre remains displaying ~67 nm banding, indicating the possible preservation of the original quaternary structure. Using ToF-SIMS, we identify amino-acid fragments typical of collagen fibrils. Furthermore, we observe structures consistent with putative erythrocyte remains that exhibit mass spectra similar to emu whole blood.

Then assumptions based on a naturalistic worldview take over:

Using advanced material characterization approaches, we find that these putative biological structures can be well preserved over geological timescales, and their preservation is more common than previously thought. The preservation of protein over geological timescales offers the opportunity to investigate relationships, physiology and behaviour of long extinct animals.”

It takes an incredible dose of naturalistic faith in believe that collagen and blood could last for “75 million years”.

The obvious conclusion is that the dinosaur bones are not that old.

Source:

Bertazzo, Sergio, Susannah C. R. Maidment, Charalambos Kallepitis, Sarah Fearn, Molly M. Stevens and Hai-nan Xie. 2015. Fibres and cellular structures preserved in 75-million–year-old dinosaur specimens. Nature Communications 6 (article 7352).(9 June).