Joel Kontinen
Did you know that burnt toast and dinosaurs bones have a common trait?
"We took on the challenge of understanding protein fossilization," said Yale paleontologist Jasmina Wiemann, the study's lead author. "We tested 35 samples of fossil bones, eggshells, and teeth to learn whether they preserve proteinaceous soft tissues, find out their chemical composition, and determine under what conditions they were able to survive for millions of years."
Now, dinosaur bone could not last that long. They are believed to have degraded in 4 million years:
“Fossil soft tissue in dinosaur bones has been a controversial topic among researchers for quite some time. Hard tissues, such as bones, eggs, teeth, and enamel scales, are able to survive fossilization extremely well. Soft tissues, such as blood vessels, cells, and nerves -- which are stored inside the hard tissue -- are more delicate and thought to decay rapidly after death. These soft tissues are composed mainly of proteins, which are believed to completely degrade within about four million years.
Yet dinosaur bones are much older, roughly 100 million years old, and they occasionally preserve organic structures similar to cells and blood vessels. Various attempts to resolve this paradox have failed to provide a conclusive answer.”
Now they can – with the toast comparison.
In 1997 Dr. Mary Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University, found remnants of red blood cells in a in a T. rex bone. She did not believe in the beginning that the soft tissue was as old as the dinos were: “It’s 65 years old… can’t be that old.”
After that, she found collagen, haemoglobin, elastin and laminin in dinosaur fossils.
At the time, evolutionists were reluctant to believe that the discovery was genuine but later Schweitzer and her research team found remnants of haemoglobin and collagen in a Tyrannosaur estimated to be 68 million years old.
In early 2009, Dr. Schweitzer and her colleagues found collagen, haemoglobin, elastin and laminin in a hadrosaur assumed to be 80 million years old.
The Hadrosaur bone throws a cloud on the belief in millions of years.
Now, they are to have found it in the Cambrian animals, as well. The trick to solve the problem with toast is just to saveguard the belief in millions of years.
Source:
Yale University. 2018. A toast to the proteins in dinosaur bones. Science Daily (9 November).
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