Soft Tissue Discovered In T-Rex Bone 345
kubla2000 writes, "Paleontologists have discovered soft tissue inside the fossilized thigh bone of a T-Rex. The tissue included blood vessels, bone cells, and perhaps even blood cells." From the article: "When paleontologists find fossilized dinosaur bones during a dig, they usually do everything in their power to protect them, using tools like toothbrushes to carefully unearth the bones without inflicting any damage. However, when scientists found a massive Tyrannosaurus rex thigh bone in a remote region of Montana a few months ago, they were forced to break the bone in two in order to fit it into the transport helicopter. This act of necessity revealed a startling surprise: soft tissue that had seemingly resisted fossilization still existed inside the bone. This tissue... was so well preserved that it was still stretchy and flexible."
Makes you wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Makes you wonder (Score:3, Insightful)
It's pretty much all that they can afford anyway. Paleontology is fairly underfunded worldwide since nobody really seems to care what lurks in fossil strata. No money in it you see...
d'oh! don't touch it! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Which makes me wonder why. I mean, we don't start discussing whether Santa Claus exists every time a Christmas related story pops up, why do we talk about creationism?
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there's no large group of people out there that actually believe Santa Claus exists, and are trying to force our children to be taught that "Clausology" is a scientific theory?
Re:OLD Repost! (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but the story is still "stretchy and flexible".
wtf? (Score:3, Insightful)
How is that a good reason?
Re:DNA (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this, RTFParagraph.
Does this discovery of soft dinosaur tissue mean that scientists will soon be able to clone a Tyrannosaurus rex? Probably not most scientists believe that DNA cannot survive for 70 million years. Then again, before this discovery, most scientists believed that soft tissue could not survive for 70 million years either.
This discovery has shown that "most scientists" can be wrong. So it's quite possible that they're wrong about how long DNA can last.
LK
Re:duh (Score:2, Insightful)
In fact, maybe I should throw the 'Answers in Genesis' [wikipedia.org] people a bone by suggesting an argument for them: clearly, this result is yet another proof of creation science! After all, it's totally implausible that soft tissue could survive in rock for 65000000 years as mainstream science would have us believe! (Never mind the puzzle of how it could survive for 5000 years, for that matter..
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how well proven a fact of science is, there will always be those who deny it due to their willful ignorance or fanaticism. If the only people they harm in the process are themselves, no great loss. If, however, they have access to children or other innocents -- picture a doctor who doesn't believe in the germ theory of disease -- they become dangerous.
Creationists teach lies to children, lies which make them, as adults, less capable of understanding the universe as it is. The universe is dangerous enough when we do understand it -- it is infinitely more so when we don't.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Scientists never said C-14 dating was 100% accurate. Carbon-14 is formed in the atmosphere when cosmic radiation reacts with Nitrogen. The accuracy if carbon dating depends on how constant the amount of nitrogen in the air is, and how much cosmic radiation hits the atmosphere. Neither of those things are likely to have changed very much in the last 60,000 years.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Claiming both atheists and Christians indoctrinate their kids to the same degree is as ludicrous as claiming the same thing about, say, mainstream Christians and the Muslim parents who send their kids to madras schools. One doesn't have to have any particular religious persuasion to see that teaching kids a relatively complex narrative (the old and new testaments) requires more time and effort on the parts of parents than not teaching them the narrative.
As bad as the Atheists... (Score:2, Insightful)
Naturally.
It's hard work. You have no idea how thin "Things just happen" gets as an explanation.
Re:Welcome back! (Score:1, Insightful)
Or use the title of your post as the first line? Or worse, as PART of your first line.
Lazy Coward
Or Maybe It's the Other Way Around (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:DNA (Score:1, Insightful)