Some day over the rainbow, Ill prove all; The authors suggest these dinosaurs may have traveled between South America and Australia by crossing Antarctica during the mid-Cretaceous. Traces of dino blood, soft tissue found even in junk bones Key to Preserving Dinosaur Soft Tissue Dont be thrown off balance by acronyms (ITMs, KLMs, MLMs, etc.) In cases such as with coalified fossil wood, for example, this conversion of biomolecules towards kerogen macromolecules can preserve original tissue morphology (Gupta et al., 2007a; Gupta, 2015; Mustoe, 2018). Based on the analysis of these samples, scientists estimate that the Earth itself is about 4.5 billion years old. But people like her never seem to question their deep time evolutionary assumptions. Draw the Dinosaur's Face. Scientists have had two decades to think about soft tissue preservation in dinosaur bones. Despite very good reasons to believe that collagen could survive for tens of millions of years in the matrix of dinosaur bones, some in the scientific community have questioned the soft-tissue finds.2 They claim these materials resulted from bacterial contamination of the fossils with microbially derived structures, thus creating a false appearance of blood vessels and cells. The structures appear to be genuine remnants of soft tissue; they are not fossilised. But for some people, the discovery raised a different question. Scientists who had to break a dinosaur bone to remove it from its sandstone location say they have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissues from inside the bone. Service R F , 2017, I dont care what they say about me: Paleontologist stares down critics in her hunt for dinosaur proteins, Science, Portland, Oregon, 13 Sep, 2017. Soft Tissue in Dinosaur (Remember that 7th grade frog dissection? Blood-derived porphyrin proteins have also been discovered in a mid Eocene mosquito fossil. 15009 Lancaster Highway | Charlotte, NC 28277704-847-5600 |[emailprotected] 2022 | All Rights Reserved, Affiliation, Authorization, & Accreditation, 3 Reasons You Should Consider a Seminary Education, 8 Essential Facts for Effective Christian Apologetics, 24 Questions about Christianity & Social Justice. 2017: the study done in 2009 was repeated in order to answer critics. Your Privacy Rights how collagens structural features allow fragments to survive for eons, Design of Life: Its a Matter of Physical Evidence & Logic, Judge Phil Ginn Condemns UN Demonic Proposal to Legalize Consensual Sex with Minors, Rely on Christ Instead of the Government in the Face of Religious Attacks, Says Judge Phil Ginn, Judge Phil Ginn Calls for Truth and Love in the Face of Heretical Easter Sermon, The Message of the Gospel is the Only Antidote for the Malaise So Prevalent in America Today, says Judge Phil Ginn, James D. San Antonio et al., Dinosaur Peptides Suggest Mechanisms of Protein Survival,, Thomas G. Kaye, Gary Gaugler, and Zbigniew Sawlowicz, Dinosaurian Soft Tissues Interpreted as Bacterial Biofilms,. In a new study published today (Nov. 26) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Schweitzer thinks she has the answer: Iron. In relative dating, fossils are compared to similar fossils and rocks, the ages of which are known. Not only is Ann the first Diamantinasaurus uncovered with a mostly preserved skull, but its also the first fossil of the species with a preserved back foot, per the statement. The extraction of protein, soft tissue, remnant cells and organelle-like structures from dinosaur fossils has been confirmed. Thomas T, 2019, Does the Toast Model explain fossil protein persistence?, Institute for Creation Research. However, Mary Schweitzer, a molecular paleontologist at North Carolina State University, who headed up the research on the T. rex remains, explained that the soft tissue was able to be preserved by iron in the dinosaurs body, which preserved the tissue before it could decay. The highly intertwined, cross-linked structure of collagen makes it reasonable that fragments of this molecule could survive for 68 million years. The flood was followed by an ice age during which there were volcanic and glacial impacts. That study, mentioned by Kevin Anderson in the video clip, reported stretchable tissue and osteocytes present in a Triceratops horn. Appendix B: Different explanations of geological history. Another alternative is that its not really soft tissue, but even hard-core evolutionists agree thats what it is. The researchers also analyzed other fossils for the presence of soft tissue, and found it was present in about half of their samples going back to the Jurassic Period, which lasted from 145.5 million to 199.6 million years ago, Schweitzer said. Where they should be three separate bones, these bones have grown together, Carrano said. Some researchers say that the detailed, external bone surface texture on the face of, say, the T. rex is just like that of a crocodilian. Microscopy images of "soft tissues" isolated from bones of the Cretaceous dinosaur Brachylophosaurus canadensis (MOR 2598 and GPDM 328), along with extant This is what archaeologists use to determine the age of human-made artifacts. "[8], Schweitzer previously announced similar discoveries in 1993. How Are Dino Tissues Preserved in Deep Time? Amino acid sequencing of several samples have shown matches with the known collagens of chickens, frogs, newts and other animals. These undated photos provided by the journal Science show demineralized fragments of tissues lining the marrow cavity of a Tyrannosaurus Rex femur. The Fascinating Story Behind Dinosaur Soft Tissue - Is Genesis Schweitzer has also isolated organic compounds and antigenic structures in sauropod egg shells. Have evolutionists and believers in Deep Time been able to get a grip? This entry was posted on November 4, 2019 by George Hawke. In addition, the oldest known moon rocks are 4.5 billion years old. While fossils of large titanosaur limb bones can largely resist decomposition, their relatively smaller skulls are much more rare. Under the direction of mentor Jack Horner, she received her Ph.D. in Biology from Montana State University in 1995. This is a world famous area for finding fossil dinosaur remains. Other techniques include analyzing amino acids and measuring changes in an object's magnetic field. Scientists have had two decades to think about soft tissue preservation in dinosaur bones. [9][10] Soft tissue in dinosaur bones | George's Journal During the excavation of Ann, which took place in 2018, the skulls pieces were found scattered over a roughly 100-square-foot area with the animals back leg bones. These two hypotheses, taken together, dont answer every question regarding soft tissue preservation in deep time. As the award recipient Schweitzer was the keynote speaker and presented on her research. How strong is the empiricism in his argument? The most widely known form of radiometric dating is carbon-14 dating. [18], On April 28, 2018, Schweitzer became the first recipient of the Dr. Elizabeth 'Betsy' Nicholls Award for Excellence in Palaeontology at the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre's Dig Deep Gala event. and nobody looks," she said. Be especially wary of distractions and sidesteps. They discovered that the fragments all came from the innermost areas of the fibers, where the strands are packed most closely. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. This forced closeness allows for broken strands to occasionally rejoin and reform the original protein. Once the protein strand breaks, the fragments are held in close proximity by the contact points. As the soft tissue in dinosaur bones can be explained readily under the biblical time scale, this supplies a more realistic explanation of the presence of soft tissue in dinosaur bones than the uniformitarian (geologic) time scale. Sometimes a dinosaur carcass has been preserved as a natural mummy with widespread skin impressions. (LogOut/ Eventually, some of the blocks can fall away, leaving a smaller, more stable structure. L ast year at about this time, it was disclosed that scientists had made an amazing discovery of a Tyrannosaurus rex thigh bone that still retained well-preserved soft tissue (which included blood vessels and cells). The more vulnerable areas of the fibers should break down first, with the most protected ones persisting over timea type of molecular survival of the fittest. But you can predict how long it will take a large group of atoms to decay. This is a remarkably detailed and information-packed paper, Matthew Lamanna, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History who was not involved with the new study but helped describe S. musacchioi in 2016, tells Live Sciences Sascha Pare. Dinosaur Radiometric dating isn't the only method of determining the age of rocks. But I wanted to show the chemistry behind these ideas, and that it plausibly explains the soft tissues and cells were seeing in, for example, dinosaurs. But after a volunteer found a bone that turned out to be part of the brain case, Poropat tells the Guardian, that then made all the other bits fall into place.. Both of these ages are assigned according to the geological time scale. Schweitzer and her colleagues found that dinosaur soft tissue is closely associated with iron nanoparticles in both the T. rex and another soft-tissue specimen from Brachylophosaurus canadensis, a type of duck-billed dinosaur. So they involve huge extrapolations in time. to explain how it could last tens of millions of years. WebCollagen and soft tissue were detected in dinosaur bones which is " exceptional preservation " and should not be there after so long a time period as 65 M years. dinosaur While the oldest known rocks on Earth are about 3.5 billion years old, researchers have found zircon crystals that are 4.3 billion years old [source: USGS]. However we have no reason to believe that they were not literal years, genesis is very specific, even to odd numbers. The fact that the fragments clustered to the most protected areas of the fibers makes better sense if they were generated from dinosaur collagens. All these explanations proposed to explain soft tissue in dinosaur bones are tentative and not robust because they involve historical science in which the results of experiments done over a short period of time (maybe a few years) are applied to a long period of time (thousands and millions of years). Photograph B shows the demineralized bone in (A) after air drying. Flexible fossil shows tyrannosaur's softer Mary Higby Schweitzer is an American paleontologist at North Carolina State University, who led the groups that discovered the remains of blood cells in dinosaur fossils and later discovered soft tissue remains in the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen MOR 1125,[1][2] as well as evidence that the specimen was a pregnant female when she died.[3]. in Communicative Disorders from Utah State University in 1977, and got a Certificate of Secondary Education in Broadfield Science from Montana State University in 1988. The discovery is the latest in several recent - and controversial - soft tissue finds by archaeologists: researchers last November claimed the controversial discovery of ), Fixatives like formaldehyde keep the tissues from degrading in part, they make them less digestible to bacteria, says Landon Anderson, doctoral candidate at NCState and lead author of a study in Earth Science Reviews. Some researchers say that the detailed, external bone surface texture on the face of, say, the T. rex is just like that of a crocodilian. At least six possible explanations (including bacterial contaminants) have been suggested for this preservation of soft tissue in dinosaur bones, but they have all been refuted (Thomas, 2019). His declaration The author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose is a half-truth. However we have no reason to believe that they were not literal years, genesis is very specific, even to odd numbers. "Once we can get the chemistry behind some of these soft tissues, there's all sorts of questions we can ask of ancient organisms," Schweitzer said. And tests seemed to confirm the presence of collagen. WebT-Rex in soft Tissue!Tyrannosaurs Rex, the most popular Dinosaur in the world touted to have lived over 70 million years ago has been found in soft tissue. Numerous collagen triple helices assemble in a staggered fashion to form a larger structure called a collagen fibril. But you can disprove it. Schweitzer and her colleagues first raised this question in 2005, when they found the seemingly impossible: soft tissue preserved inside the leg of an adolescent T. rex unearthed in Montana. Red blood cells could be clearly viewed using a thrift store microscope! Scientists have had two decades to think about soft tissue preservation in dinosaur bones. Scientists Find Soft Tissue in T. rex Fossil - Scientific American Scientists at Imperial College London have discovered what appear to be the remnants of soft tissue and red blood cells in poorly preserved dinosaur bones dating back 75 million years. The big question is, why are the soft tissues still there in dinosaur bones when artificial decay experiments show soft tissues can last thousands of years but not millions of years? Medullary bone occurs in both branches of dinosaurs, so it likely evolved soon after the split from crocodilians. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: The oldest fossils, microscopic in nature, were discovered in a 3.5 billion-year-old rock in Western Australia. University of California Museum of Paleontology, "Soft tissue and cellular preservation in vertebrate skeletal elements from the Cretaceous to the present", "New discoveries hint there's a lot more in fossil bones than we thought", "Geologists Find First Clue To Tyrannosaurus Rex Gender In Bone Tissue", "Scientists Retrieve Proteins From Dinosaur Bone", "Molecular preservation in Late Cretaceous sauropod dinosaur eggshells", "T. Rex Tissue Offers Evolution Insights", "Dinosaurian Soft Tissues Interpreted as Bacterial Biofilms", "Influence of Microbial Biofilms on the Preservation of Primary Soft Tissue in Fossil and Extant Archosaurs", "Dinosaur Peptides Suggest Mechanisms of Protein Survival", "Mass Spectrometry and Antibody-Based Characterization of Blood Vessels from Brachylophosaurus Canadensis", "Hemoglobin-derived porphyrins preserved in a Middle Eocene blood-engorged mosquito", "A role for iron and oxygen chemistry in preserving soft tissues, cells and molecules from deep time", "World renown fossil hunter accepts award of excellence in Manitoba | Watch News Videos Online", "Dig Deep: Renowned Fossil Hunter to Keynote Morden Gala | ChrisD.ca", "An Early Cretaceous enantiornithine (Aves) preserving an unlaid egg and probable medullary bone", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mary_Higby_Schweitzer&oldid=1130432919, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 30 December 2022, at 04:16. The same is true if you take a block away from one of the pyramid's sides, making the rest unstable. "I'd like to find a honking big T. rex that's completely articulated that's still in the ground, or something similar," she said. 5. It works by linking up, or cross-linking, the amino acids that make up proteins, which makes those proteins more resistant to decay. Six reasons to be skeptical of the geologic time scale. That gives him an escape valve. Since the moon and the Earth probably formed at the same time, this supports the current idea of the Earth's age. The short half-life is only part of the problem when dating dinosaur bones -- researchers also have to find enough of the parent and daughter atoms to measure. In short, he argues that because we know that fossil fuels, coalified wood and invertebrate fossils are tens or hundreds of millions of years old, whats the problem with accepting dinosaur soft tissue being that old as well? The first-of-its-kind find reveals how sauropods may have moved between Australia and South America during the mid-Cretaceous. In 2005 paleontologist Mary Schweitzer found the first evidence for soft tissues in a dinosaur bone. In fact, the chemistry from this paper potentially describes preservation for a variety of original cellular tissues, including vertebrates and other organisms trapped within amber, carbonized traces of ancient feathers and skin, and even dinosaur mummies.. The recent discovery of preserved cells and soft tissues in certain dinosaur bones seems incompatible with an This information has also helped determine the age of the Earth itself. Which needs less demystifying? As Ive previously pointed out, it is not all that surprising that collagen (or at least fragments of it) could survive 68 million years in an environment devoid of water, oxygen, and microbes given its structure. Along with The element's half-life is the amount of time it takes for half the parent atoms in a sample to become daughters. The famous case is when when American paleontologist Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University discovered collagen fibers in the fossilized leg bone of a T rex. | READ MORE. They soaked one group of blood vessels in iron-rich liquid made of red blood cells and another group in water. You would have to invent a Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Let him consider seriously the possibility that dinosaur soft tissue is probably only a few thousand years old and watch him get fired real fast. They are not calling them biofilms or instances of contamination. Also see: Lots of limestone The bone was 68 million years old, and conventional wisdom about fossilization is that all soft tissue, from blood to brains, decomposes. How Do Scientists Reconstruct What Dinosaurs Looked Like? Unfortunately, these elements don't exist in dinosaur fossils themselves. Bio-film (a product of more recent bacterial action), cant explain the presence of proteins or DNA. [19][20] On March 20, 2019 the journal Nature Communications published a paper naming an extinct bird "Avimaia schweitzerae in honor of Mary Higby Schweitzer for her ground-breaking works on MB [ medullary bone ] and for her role in establishing the field of molecular paleontology."[21]. Today's knowledge of fossil ages comes primarily from radiometric dating, also known as radioactive dating. Namely, how is it possible for soft tissue to survive for 68 million years? These are complex molecules that continually tend to break down to simpler ones. To determine the ages of these specimens, scientists need an isotope with a very long half-life. Original article on LiveScience. We have seen that the biblical time scale Her first report of the preserved tissue ( Science, 25 March 2005, p. 1952) was based on preliminary tests. Scientists have had two decades to think about soft tissue preservation in dinosaur bones. Radiometric dating!" Do some careful reading and see whether his chemical framework for soft tissue preservation makes plausible chemical sense and answers all the objections to the crosslinking hypothesis brought up by Kevin Anderson and Brian Thomas, or whether LAA is desperately looking for rescue devices to preserve deep time. Using the basic ideas of bracketing and radiometric dating, researchers have determined the age of rock layers all over the world. The bone was said to be 68 million years old according to the geologic time scale. In 2000, paleontologist Bob Harmon found a You can learn more about fossils, dinosaurs, radiometric dating and related topics by reading through the links below. Schweitzer was the first researcher to identify and isolate soft tissues (such as collagen, a connective protein) from an ancient fossil bone (Appendix A). In fact, collagen makes up around 25 to 30 percent of all proteins found in animals. Scientists have excavated the first near-complete skull of a sauropod to ever be found in Australia. At that time, Australia, Antarctica, New Zealand and South America were all connected in a southern landmass known as Gondwana. Dinosaur Soft Tissue Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Such a find is quite rare, lead researcher Stephen Poropat of Australias Curtin University tells the Guardians Donna Lu. Even a polymer shield strong enough to resist microbes would develop cracks. But a surprising number of fossil specimens also contained soft tissues, including structures resembling blood vessels, tubular nerve projections, collagen and So to determine the age of sedimentary rock layers, researchers first have to find neighboring layers of Earth that include igneous rock, such as volcanic ash. For example, by using a laser, researchers can measure parent and daughter atoms in extremely small amounts of matter, making it possible to determine the age of very small samples [source: New Scientist]. 2009: protein (collagen) fragments were isolated from a 80 million year old (geologic time scale) hadrosaur fossil. Preservation of Soft Tissues in Dinosaur Fossils: 1995: spectroscopy and chemical analyses of extracts from a T. rex femur suggested preserved proteins, including a form of collagen abundant in modern animal bones. Still, Morris question is not unreasonable. A chemical framework for the preservation of fossil vertebrate cells and soft tissues (Landon A. Anderson, Earth Science Reviews, May 2023 issue). The American Biology Teacher (2021) 83 (5): 298302. In response to these claims, researchers mapped collagen fragments isolated from theT. A chemical framework for the preservation of fossil vertebrate cells and soft tissues. Meanwhile, Schweitzer has been testing whether the medullary bone and other soft tissue she discovered are original. Right in the Abstract, he distracts attention by emphasizing whether two hypotheses are distinct or not. In recent years, researchers have found 1) epithelial cell and osteoclast remnants; 2) the remains of blood vessels, and 3) heme, and hemoglobin components in the partially fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex femur. Finally, collagens association with the bone matrix provides added stability to the collagen proteins. These regions are the most protected within the collagen fiber. After a two-year retrieval process, Jack Horner, director of the Museum, gave the femur bone to Schweitzer. The most recent explanation is oxidative cross-linking of chemically reactive proteins with glucose or lipid molecules to form polymers, which are highly resistant to decay, water and bacteria. This is about 20,000 times older than the biblical explanation, which is a huge difference (more than 4 orders of magnitude). The discovery of Ann is helping uncover more details about D. matildae. Before the law suit on this dismissal went to court, CSUN settled, paying compensatory damages, lawyers fees, and money for lost wages. Significantly, Landon Anderson does cite the published work by Mark Armitage and Kevin Anderson in Acta Histochemica (2013) in his list of soft tissue reports. By using radiometric dating to determine the age of igneous brackets, researchers can accurately determine the age of the sedimentary layers between them. This is a question-begging argument, like saying Whats the problem with saying Corvettes evolved by chance, refuting intelligent design? And in 2015 fibers and cellular structures were discovered preserved in 75 million year old dinosaur specimens. Some of the isotopes used for this purpose are uranium-238, uranium-235 and potassium-40, each of which has a half-life of more than a million years. This is what archaeologists use to determine the age of human-made artifacts. Large numbers of collagen fibrils in turn assemble, with the aid of other proteins, into collagen fibers. Based on similarities in the part of the skull surrounding the brain, the bones at the back end of the jaw joint and the curved and conical teeth, the new fossil supports the idea that these two dinosaurs were close relatives, per the statement. Such implications that are immediately apparent from examining the chemical framework are discussed. How does he deal with it? "What we found was unusual, because it was still soft and still transparent and still flexible," Schweitzer told LiveScience. But carbon-14 dating won't work on dinosaur bones. It was really convincing, says paleontologist Martin Sander of the University of Bonn, Germany. Editor's Note: This article was updated at 2pm Eastern Nov. 28 to correct unclear language about proteins and DNA. [See Images of a Near-Complete T. rex]. Also proteins like collagen, hemoglobin, osteocalcin, actin, and tubulin were found. Her work has appeared in theSag Harbor Expressand has aired onWSHU Public Radio. Even so, scientists have found intact soft tissue in dinosaur bones before. The most famous case dates to 2005 when Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University found collagen fibers in the fossilized leg bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex. But such discoveries are rare and have previously occurred only with extremely well-preserved fossils. Yes. The mapping study supports the bioauthenticity of the collagen fragments. Biblical explanation The global flood about 4.5k years ago and associated tectonic activity and volcanism produced enormously thick sequences of sedimentary rocks over a short period of time. 39 Harvard scientists have confirmed that proteins from the collagen detected in the famous T-Rex (2005) was definitely collagen as determined by sequencing the fraction. At present there are two main explanations of the earths geological and climatological history. [14][15][16] Blood-derived porphyrin proteins have also been discovered in a mid Eocene mosquito fossil. So far, there is every indication that the dinosaur soft tissuesincredible as it seemsare real biological leftovers from their once-living hosts. I still havent (Service, 2017). He doesnt know that, because he tosses the solution into the futureware bucket. WebEvidence for the extraction of short segments of ancient DNA from dinosaur fossils has been reported on two occasions. The discovery of soft tissue in dinosaur bones was unexpected and scientists have struggled to find a robust explanation. Fossil age is determined using two methods, relative dating and absolute dating. Armitage believes that if dinosaurs have soft tissue in their bones, then something is wrong with the belief system that says the world is billions of years old. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Fossils represent the order of burial during the flood. Since 2004, soft tissue has been discovered in fossils all over the world, spanning the entire Deep Time continuum, as Dr Brian Thomas at ICR has shown. "Understanding Evolution for Teachers: Radiometric Dating." On the dig he and others uncovered the largest Triceratops horn ever found at that location. Appendix A: A summary of Mary Schweitzers research (Service, 2017). Importantly, Schweitzer and her colleagues have figured out how to remove the iron from their samples, which enables them to analyze the original proteins. Margaret Osborne is a freelance journalist based in the southwestern U.S. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 01, 2009. Fossils can't form in the igneous rock that usually does contain the isotopes. It was really amazing to be able to find a skull at all and even more so to get so much of one that had been preserved.. For one, scientists can now create a loose reconstruction of how the dinosaurs face might have looked. The study by Anderson also delves into the processes of carbonization and sulfurization, in addition to the best conditions for preservation. Questions remain regarding how the predominant preservation pathways change under different environmental conditions, but Anderson believes that demystifying the general chemical theory behind the processes involved is an important first step. Can Iron Preserve Fossil Proteins for Eons soft tissue In samples from their 68-million-year-old T. rex, Schweitzer and colleagues The half-life of carbon-14 is only 5,730 years, so carbon-14 dating is only effective on samples that are less than 50,000 years old. Darwinians Struggle with Dinosaur Soft Tissue CEH Rare 95-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Skull Uncovered in Australia.