http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/genes-show-t-rex-related-to-chickens/20070412165109990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001This is pretty interesting. The God of the gaps just shrunk. Big surprise
(April 12) – An adolescent female Tyrannosaurus rex died 68 million years ago, but its bones still contain intact soft tissue, including the oldest preserved proteins ever found, scientists say. And a comparison of the protein?s chemical structure to a slew of other species showed an evolutionary link between T. rex and chickens, bolstering the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs. The collagen proteins were found hidden inside the leg bone of the T. rex fossil, according to two studies published in the April 13 issue of the journal Science. Collagen is the main ingredient of connective tissue in animals and is found in cartilage, ligaments, tendons, hooves, bones and teeth. It yields gelatin and glue when boiled in water. ?I mean can you imagine pulling a bone out the ground after 68 million years and then getting intact protein sequences?? said John Asara of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, lead author of one of the studies. ?That?s just mind boggling how much preservation there is in these bones.? The previous record holder for the oldest protein tissue belonged to collagen found in a 100,000- to 300,000-year-old mammoth bone. The new finding will be viewed skeptically, admitted one of the researchers involved in the two studies. ?It?s very, very, very controversial because most people have gone on record saying there?s an absolute time limit to anything that?s protein or DNA,? said Mary Schweitzer, a molecular paleontologist at North Carolina State University.Matthew Carrano, a dinosaur curator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in either study, said the protein findings are robust. ?Here are the pieces of the protein. If you?re going to refute this you have to explain how these pieces got in there,? Carrano said in a telephone interview. ?It?s not another molecule mimicking the protein and giving off a similar signal. This is the actual sequence.? (snip)?I?m grateful that he was able to get the [amino acid] sequences out. That?s the Holy Grail,? Schweitzer told LiveScience. This finding supports the idea that chickens and T. rex share an evolutionary link and bolsters previous research showing that birds evolved from dinosaurs and that birds are living dinosaurs. ?Here we have a real molecule from a real dinosaur, and it?s much more similar to a bird than it is to anything else,? Carrano said.
Great article and a exciting discovery!
Thank You
Please somebody get a sample of Phreedy’s DNA. I wonder what his evolutionary relatives were? Baboon + Lemming = Lemboon?
What-
You forgot the Dodo bird.
I’m sure Phreedy and Tim will have something to say about this.
This is great news and will be exciting to watch as it unfolds.
How can that be Christians tell me the earth is only 3000 years old!!!
lol
Am I the only one who thinks this could turn out to be a bad thing…
Have you never seen Jurrasic Park…
stevedave10:
Just pick up one of these t-shirts.
http://xkcd.com/store/
I wouldn’t call this a Holy Grail anything, it’s just another confirmation. But have a 68 million year old protein sequence is pretty neat. Not as cool as DNA, but still.
I’m very skeptical. 68 million years! Hope it’s true, but I’m going to wait.
Jay-
That’s 6,000 years old!
C’mon, it says it in the buybull so it must be true.
Jeez.
Boise Jim
I stand corrected.
Lemming + Baboon + Dodo = Lemboondo
Survival of the Fittest?
SELMER, Tennessee (AP) — A preacher’s wife told authorities she shot her husband after a long buildup of domestic problems, according to an audiotape that prosecutors played Friday at her murder trial.
“How many times did you shoot him?” asks Alabama Bureau of Investigation agent Stan Stabler.
“I shot him once,” says Mary Winkler, 33.
At another point, she says, “My ugly came out.”
I can already see what the christians are going to say about it. They’ll probably claim that they made up the protein sequence, or better yet, claim that the scientists switched the fossils with chicken bones after eating at Popeye’s. I would like to see if the protein sequence tastes cajun or mild.
The last time my ugly came out…my wife got knocked up.
T-Rex is to chicken, as Lemboondo is to Phreedy
Can we please learn to express ourselves without using lame religious imagery?
Sure, how about christians suck.
Ooooh. They should mix the DNA with a chicken and make a Chickasaurus Rex! Could you imagine a huge featherless chicken chasing people trying to peck them to death? Heehee, it’s a hilarious mental image. I could imagine it looking like a plucked chicken with a long tail.
Wouldn’t it be something if T-Rex and chicken DNA were actually the same, and all the differences were purely cultural.
Seriously, this is very interesting science, and what is really interesting is to see how skepticism plays out within the scientific community. It seems that saying these are dinosaur proteins is in fact an extraordinary claim, but instead of anyone claiming divine insight (“God revealed to me that this protein came from a T-Rex”), the scientists accept their burden of proof and will set about providing extraordinary evidence. Not that personality won’t enter into the process, but I trust logic will prevail.
How much you want to bet that Fox Noise and CNN won’t be covering this?
My father, who was raised on a farm and is a veterinarian, once told me that if you put a chicken on a hard surface they will peck at it until their brain hemorrhages.
Phreedy would you please verify this for me by spending the day in your garage. Think of it as your contribution to science.
I just had some fried chicken from Bojangles. It tasted distinctly (extinctly?) like tyrannosaur.
I have already heard what the right-wing christians say. Well, at least one, expressed his disbelief that bones that old would still have any tissue. He also expressed how the standard theory of fossil formation must be very wrong.
But, that is the whole problem with this type of believer. They refuse to believe anything threatening to their world view. And will find some way of writing it off as a wacky conspiracy to get rid of christianity.
Ah me, the posts seem to be suffering from a bit of ennui, but then again so am I.
(yawn, stretch, get butt out of chair, go outside, breathe fresh air, return to keyboard)
Bullocks to what the young-earth creationists will make of this. No amount of evidence will ever serve to convince them their beliefs are mistaken. Preaching to neanderthals is a lost cause, and the choir needs no further convincing; it’s to the fence-sitters that we realists must advance this exciting discovery.
It is from the quasi-believer, the haven’t-quite-made-up-my-mind church, the exploratory young person that this news may draw some honest, critical soul-searching and induce justifiable doubt as to whether “(G)od made us” or whether it’s much more likely we’re simply a natural result of all-natural processes. It’s to these people that the “god of the gaps” argument becomes persuasive, and thus it is to them that we should apply our talents.
Celebrant
I agree. Whatsmore, the future is very encouraging. Europe has a huge percentage of nonbelievers. Does anybody have a good estimate on those numbers?
i bet that thing would of been a blast to hunt.probably best to use a rifle wouldn’t be prudent to let it get too close.i wonder what the best way to cook it would be.
The scientist that made this discovery is a Xtian. so they might have a hard time claiming this is an atheist conspiracy.
But I also know that there is really no such thing as a “waterproof” rock. I’m highly skeptical that the 68 million year old fossil could maintain its’ soft tissue content.
The Rx surrounding the fossil is what I am the most curious about. This sample appears to defy current geological principles.
off-topic a female suicide bomber said she wanted her brother to have 72 virgins.now folks that want family is all about of course you free love open marriage heathens wouldn’t know a damn thing about family love.
I just heard that a Jurassic Park IV movie is slated for next year. Maybe the T. rex will have feathers like some palentologists believe. The feathers probably started out as modified scales used for warmth insulation and later became used for flight.
key thing is would it taste good.
Reason,
Evidently, It would taste like chicken.
David do you eat t.rex with white or red wine.
This is an exciting discovery.
In any case, I don’t see how it advances the atheist cause. I’m a Christian who ardently believes in a God-directed evolution. Only the ignorant Christians are against science.
This is a great SCIENTIFIC discovery, people, not a great ATHEIST discovery.
SCIENCE =/= ATHEISM
Stop making the two appear synonymous.
Sooo that would be the majority of them then, right?
thetheist:
What, exactly, is the “atheist cause” again?
And like many Christians who share your beliefs regarding science, you’ll continue to force your God into natural explanations that do not require your God’s influence.
Maybe I missed where the article stated it was an “atheist” discovery?
Actually, I?m not sure atheists are as guilty of that as Christians are. ?Those damn, liberal, atheist scientists always explaining God out of everything!?, is a phrase I?ve heard from a number of Christians.
Heh! I love the graphic!
http://gayorbit.net/?p=6914
anadrol: “Sooo that would be the majority of them then, right?”
-Over generalization
DVanWechel:
“What, exactly, is the “atheist cause” again?”
-What I meant by that is the atheists’ disbelief in God (and their hopeless efforts to try to disprove God’s existence).
“And like many Christians who share your beliefs regarding science, you’ll continue to force your God into natural explanations that do not require your God’s influence.”
-Actually, I completely exclude God from scientific explanations. Yes, I say that ‘God is a cause for this’, but I don’t settle with ‘God did it’. For instance, I don’t simply use God to explain the Big Bang; I think there’s more scientific discovery to be made there, but I still believe He was the ultimate METAPHYSICAL cause (the drive behind the noumenon, if you like). Science and religion are not to be mixed. One explores the physical universe; the other seeks to define the metaphysical.
“Maybe I missed where the article stated it was an ‘atheist’ discovery?”
-It didn’t. But several comments seemed to be implying that this discovery goes entirely against Christianity.
“Actually, I?m not sure atheists are as guilty of that as Christians are. ‘Those damn, liberal, atheist scientists always explaining God out of everything!’, is a phrase I?ve heard from a number of Christians.”
-I completely agree with you.