Dinosaur Study Backs Controversial Find

When scientists reported 2 years ago that they had discovered intact protein fragments from a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex, the skeptics pounced. They argued that one of the main lines of evidence, signatures of the protein fragments taken by mass spectrometry, was flawed. But now a reanalysis of that mass-spec data from an independent group of researchers backs up the original claim that dinosaur proteins have indeed survived the assault of time.

In 2005, a team led by Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University in Raleigh reported in Science that it had discovered an unusual T. rex fossil, in which some of the soft tissues, including blood vessels and other fibrous tissue, seemed to have been preserved. Two years later, Schweitzer teamed with mass-spec expert John Asara of Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues to report that mass-spec studies identified seven peptide fragments that appeared to come from dinosaur collagen and that those sequences were closely related to analogous sequences from the chicken and other modern birds, as would be expected given the many lines of evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs. But skeptics argued that the mass-spec signals barely hovered above the data's background noise. And Schweitzer and Asara, they argued, couldn't rule out that the signals were caused by contaminants.

The controversy has continued in letters and follow-up papers. It also prompted Asara to release his complete mass-spec data set to other experts to allow them to judge for themselves. So researchers from the Palo Alto Research Center in California and the University of California, Davis, decided to do just that. They reanalyzed Asara's mass-spec data using a different set of bioinformatics tools and statistical tests.

Article continues here: sciencenow.sciencemag.org...

reply to post by Scooby Doo


It is so freaking amazing that it is a T-Rex. Out of ALLLLL the dinosaurs. Coming soon:



Thank god Jeff Goldblum is still around to pull us out of this mess! Wait, it was that other guy! OH NOEZ!!!!

So does this mean that with a little work we could someday see a live t-rex similar to what I've heard they want to try with that mammoth? Or am I just getting overexcited?

reply to post by Scooby Doo


The reason this has been rejected by popular science is that it is IMPOSSIBLE for proteins to remain INTACT for MILLIONS of years. This is based on simple science - or the KNOWN decay rate of the peptide bonds.

There simply is no presevative that could do this - ask a mortician.

So the only other SCIENTIFIC answer is this scrap of tissue, while being authentically that of a T-Rex, is simply THOUSANDS, and not millions of years old.

Ancient Man riding T-Rex would be awesome!

Whats that Alexander the Great? You got Elephants? LOL My T-Rex cavalry will crush your forces! Send in the Raptor Chariots!

reply to post by skycopilot


Personally, I feel that the whole truth is not being told.
Much like the fallacy about the origin of human beings, I think that the rumors of the demise of the dinosaurs has been greatly exaggerated, or at leas misguided.
Reptilians anyone?

To say that there is no means by which the peptides could be preserved is to claim that all possibilities are known. This isn't the case. All we can say is that we don't know of amy means by which peptides could be preserved for such a length of time.

Now we have evidence that, in some cases, peptides can survive millions of years. Perhaps this evidence is contaminated or otherwise invalid. Perhaps T-Rex lived only thousands of years ago. However, the best hypothesis, the one that fits the facts, is that in some cases peptides can survive much longer than we thought.

It wouldn't be the first time we've guessed wrong about something in science.

reply to post by chiron613


Ever been to Paluxy,TX? There is a Dinosaur Valley State Park there, and in a creek or river bed are footprints - Very large dinosaur footprints in rock. And Oh, yeah, human footprints also. This is well known, and the info is in many books (but not in NGeo, the Smithsonian, and other sy-fy government shills of misinformation.)

In other words, human and "dragons" (which is what they were called before the mid-nineteenth century) co-existed. And it was thousands, not miilions of years ago.

Originally posted by skycopilot
... it is IMPOSSIBLE for proteins to remain INTACT for MILLIONS of years. This is based on simple science - or the KNOWN decay rate of the peptide bonds.

Uh... care to provide some evidence of this supposed KNOWN rate of decay? A link perhaps?

I have a biochemistry degree and that is a new one to me.

We are not talking about a radioactive substance that spontaneously decays over time here we are talking about proteins.

They are subject to cleavage by hydrolysis and other means but under the right conditions will not spontaneously "decay".

I thought there was a rule around here about posting knowingly false information.

Your conclusion that t-Rex must be only thousands of years old tells me your simply a bible thumper grasping at straws.

reply to post by Sarkazmon


you sure you're a biochemist?

proteins cannot magically appear out of nothing anymore thatn a 747 is created by a tornado passing through a junkyard.

Originally posted by skycopilot
...proteins cannot magically appear out of nothing ...

NOBODY said they did.

Stop twisting my words.

Please provide support for your claim that there is a KNOWN decay rate for peptide bonds.

Until you do so I will have nothing further to say to you.

Go thump your bible in a religion forum.

reply to post by Sarkazmon


links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7316(197210)37%3A4%3C514%3A

a link (and many more) is available

Sarcsam is no cover for bias.

Originally posted by skycopilot
reply to post by Scooby Doo

 

The reason this has been rejected by popular science is that it is IMPOSSIBLE for proteins to remain INTACT for MILLIONS of years. This is based on simple science - or the KNOWN decay rate of the peptide bonds.

There simply is no presevative that could do this - ask a mortician.

So the only other SCIENTIFIC answer is this scrap of tissue, while being authentically that of a T-Rex, is simply THOUSANDS, and not millions of years old.

Unless the dinosaurs aren't millions of years old.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong. [Arthur C. Clarke]

[edit on 31-7-2009 by bigfatfurrytexan]

The tissue is still testable because it is only a few thousand years old. The animal died in the flood of Noah and evolutionists are hopelessly searching for a way to work around creation-evidence just like they do every other time they misinterpret such obvious clues that explain our origins

God did it just like He said He did in the Bible. When you come to grips with this fact, everything in the Universe begins to make sense is spite of ourselves...

reply to post by Scooby Doo


This is awesome! I'm not sure we should work on cloning T-Rex but we definitely need to take a close look at this DNA chain and see what we can learn about life way back in Dino days and how it has changed.

The only issue is that the Creationists will be all over this find, they will toss out the facts and be like "See, this dinosaur is proof of a young Earth, and Jesus probably rode him around Jerusalem."

reply to post by mewize


omg! So your baseing your facts on a book that has been rewritten several times and had things taken out and reworded, and parts not even included according to who was in power at the time to surrpress and control certin groups of people and you think for one minute that your gonna get the truth. If you had logic it would tell you not to get your information from one source. Get it from every possible source/side, and the truth lies some where in the middle. I'm just sayin...
There is more to our story than whats in that book. Wake up.

reply to post by Scooby Doo


Scooby, fascinating post and thread. What I'm wondering with the study of these proteins and the lineage of T-Rex, would it taste like chicken? I'm thinking of that Flinstones drive-in where Fred gets those huge ribs delivered to the car. We just got a Sonic in town and I'm thinking big picture here. Could you get enough gals on roller skates? Imagine the McNuggets!

Wait......, not those "McNuggets", you're all getting way ahead of me there!

Kinda supports the theory that dinosaurs are not as old as we think, and carbon dating is skewed from fires.

Tissue remaining? Wow.

Darwinism is going down. Bring in God.

There was a really nice article on this a few months back in Wired. Strict protcols were followed with the first tests but follow-ups that met the communities standards have since verified that closest match is birds.

I've loved Dinos since I was a little guy and I totally dig that birds are Dinos! they never went extinct, in fact they are very successful!

[edit on 31-7-2009 by Helmkat]

Well what proves that God created it? It is not as if something proving Evolution wrong immediately proves that God did ANYTHING! That would take an entirely new theory in and of itself!

All we would be left with if Evolution is proved wrong is NOTHING!

God has ZERO proof for ANYTHING!

It is not an Evolution / God debate! Creationism would prove absolutely JACK SQUAT about the existence of God!

Get your nose out of the Bible and into a Science book!

The book of Genesis is not irrefutable proof for the explanation of how everything was created.


[edit on 31-7-2009 by TurkeyBurgers]