Soft Tissue From a 180 Million Year Old Ichthyosaur

Image courtesy of Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY 3.0.


Joel Kontinen

Nature has an interesting article on a 180 million year old ichthyosaur, authored by Mary Schweitzer and 22 other researchers.,

Schweitzer’s university has this to say about the findings:

“Molecular and microstructural analysis of a Stenopterygius ichthyosaur from the Jurassic (180 million years ago) reveals that these animals were most likely warm-blooded, had insulating blubber and used their coloration as camouflage from predators.”

The press release quotes Johan Lindgren:“Both the body outline and remnants of internal organs are clearly visible,” says Lindgren. “Remarkably, the fossil is so well-preserved that it is possible to observe individual cellular layers within its skin.”

“Schweitzer and NC State research assistant Wenxia Zheng extracted soft tissues from the samples and performed multiple, high-resolution immunohistochemical analyses. ‘We developed a panel of antibodies that we applied to all of the samples, and saw differential binding, meaning the antibodies for a particular protein – like keratin or hemoglobin – only bound to particular areas,’ Schweitzer says. ‘This demonstrates the specificity of these antibodies and is strong evidence that different proteins persist in different tissues. You wouldn’t expect to find keratin in the liver, for example, but you would expect hemoglobin. And that’s what we saw in the responses of these samples to different antibodies and other chemical tools.’ ”

Their “results were repeatable and consistent across labs.” The soft tissue here was much older than in Schweitzer’s other discoveries for instance, in A t-rex and a Hadrosaur. It concludes that millions of years can’t be true.

Source:

Peake, Tracey. 2018. Soft Tissue Shows Jurassic Ichthyosaur Was Warm-Blooded, Had Band Camouflage, Nc State University.

Dino Soft Tissue Is Toast, Scientist Proclaim

Image courtesy of AAAS.



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).

Prof. Steven Taylor: Soft Tissue, Proteins and Carbon-14 in Dinosaur Remains

Joel Kontinen

At the creation conference, Professor Steven Taylor (University of Liverpool) spoke of the wonders that have made dinosaurs recent.
In just the twenty years since Dr. Mary Schweitzer came up with her discovery of soft tissue in dinosaur bones, many fossils have turned to be too new for evolutionists.

Dr. Schweitzer 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.” But her subsequent discoveries, all gave the same results.

Prof. Taylor has also done measurements of actual soft tissue. He says that it’s correct to say that the same precautions were used to date the old fossils than new uses. He produced a figure, saying, that the instances to soft tissue had increased all the time in recent years. Actually, all animals had soft tissue, including the ones 500 million years old.

The same is also true of proteins and carbon-14 in dinosaur bone. They could not hold that much time – but they all do.

Soft Tissue Found in an ”18 Million Year” Old Salamander

Soft tissue was found in an ”18 Million Year” old salamander fossil. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

After an animal dies, its soft tissue is destroyed rather quickly. However, researchers at the University College Dublin report that they have found muscle tissue in a salamander fossil estimated to be 18 million years old.

Dr. Maria McNamara, a geologist at UCD, and colleagues reported their discovery in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. They analysed a salamander fossil found in southern Spain carefully to ensure that their sensational discovery was not due to contamination.

In 1997 Mary Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University, found remnants of red blood cells in T. rex bone.

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.

Earlier this year Dr. Schweitzer and her colleagues found collagen, haemoglobin, elastin and laminin in a Hadrosaur assumed to be 80 million years old.

The newest discovery makes it more difficult to believe in
millions of years of earth history.

Sources:

Ancient muscle tissue extracted from 18 million year old fossil. Physorg. com. (5 November)
http://www.physorg.com/news176660912.html


Wieland, Carl. 2009.
Best ever find of soft tissue (muscle and blood) in a fossil. (11 November) comment at the Creation. com website of Creation Ministries International.

More Dino Soft Tissue Found – This Time in Hadrosaur Bone

A new soft tissue find is good news for creationists. Hadrosaurs in the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum.



Joel Kontinen

Science reported on a new discovery of soft tissue and collagen in Hadrosaur bone.

In 2006 a research group led by Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University found soft tissue and collagen in a Tyrannosaurus rex leg bone. The discovery gave rise to much debate as many scientists found it hard to believe that collagen and soft tissue could be preserved for 68 million years.

Now Schweitzer’s group recovered collagen, haemoglobin, elastin and laminin in a Hadrosaur assumed to be 80 million years old.

AAAS (the publisher of Science) chose an interesting approach in reporting the find in its newsletter This Week in Science. The title focused on the dinosaur – bird connection. It was a bit difficult to guess what the story was about without actually reading the text.

The find makes it almost impossible to believe that dinosaurs could have lived millions of years ago. This might be the reason why Science introduced the bird connection.

A more pertinent approach would have been questioning how soft tissues and collagen could possibly have been preserved for 80 million years.

Nature and New Scientist, however, were more transparent in their choices of titles.

Sources:

Dalton, Rex. 2009. Age-defying dinosaur collagen. Nature News (30 April) http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090430/full/news.2009.422.html.

Hecht, Jeff. 2009. First dino ‘blood’ extracted from ancient bone. New Scientist (30 April) http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17060-first-dino-blood-extracted-from-ancient-bone.html

Schweitzer, Mary H., Wenxia Zheng, Chris L. Organ, Recep Avci, Zhiyong Suo, Lisa M. Freimark, Valerie S. Lebleu, Michael B. Duncan, Matthew G. Vander Heiden, John M. Neveu, William S. Lane, John S. Cottrell, John R. Horner, Lewis C. Cantley, Raghu Kalluri and John M. Asara. 2009. Biomolecular Characterization and Protein Sequences of the Campanian Hadrosaur B. canadensis. Science 324: 5927, 626 – 631 (1 May 2009).