Recently, scientists have sequenced DNA extracted from a 68 million year old dinosaur bone. Some have tried to claim that this never happened, but it has been confirmed by several reliable sources. Problem. The half-life of DNA, even under optimal conditions, is only 521 years. So, it would seem to be impossible to find intact DNA that old. The only logical conclusion is that the fossil is not nearly as old as scientists believe. What else did they get wrong?
Or that tissue doesn't have a half-life in the same way that radioactive material. Tissue decay can be uneven and certain environments can greatly extend the life-span of tissue. If the earth is young, why aren't we easily finding Dinosaur DNA everywhere and building a Jurassic park? https://biologos.org/blogs/jim-stum...osaur-bones-what-does-the-evidence-really-say
Evidence for the factoid about DNA? I don't believe that DNA has a half-life at all. Half-life is associated with radioactivity, not chemical degeneration. No offense, but your source is lying to you.
Last year, researchers estimated that the half-life of DNA — the point at which half the bonds in a DNA molecule backbone would be broken — is 521 years. That means that, under ideal conditions, DNA would last about 6.8 million years, after which all the bonds would be broken. But DNA would not be readable after about 1.5 million years, the researchers said. The oldest DNA recorded was found in Greenland ice, and estimated to be between 450,000 and 800,000 years old. https://www.livescience.com/38150-dna-degradation-rate.html DNA can last quite a long time.
Sir Richard Owen was a hack who couldn't see a dragon when he studied dragon fossils - He's worse than that Bastard Columbus.
I for one would like to see it happen. There are of course biological limitations on DNA survivability. Notwithstanding temperature and mediums of samples, as Mastadons found in Russia, intact and still edible according to anecdotes of researchers that supposedly cooked and ate parts. Whether or not such DNA is viable I would not know.
I saw one science show that said just having complete DNA isn't all you need. There is some other substance that turns DNA on and off at the right times. Probably why we have complete DNA of plenty of animals but cloning one is still difficult.
Are you gonna visit? I'm not. I saw the movies, and I can't run that fast. https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/32799/title/Half-Life-of-DNA-Revealed/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...vered-eight-cretaceous-era-fossils-180955538/
But Holy smokes!! I recall reading a few years ago about some soft tissue found on fossilized bones and I didn't believe it since it was from religious site. Frankly I am beyond amazed and had to pinch myself a couple times to insure I was not dreaming. Nope, no dream state. Now I am wondering how this is even possible! Wonder how it can be explained? But it is unbelievably wonderful news for this field of science as well as biology. Yet still hard to believe, at least at this present moment.
What's interesting is that the woman who originally discovered it is an atheist. And she took a lot of flack from her colleagues. It just didn't fit the narrative.
Mary Schweitzer was an Evangelical Christian who felt compelled to ask Christians to stop misrepresenting her work. She experienced at first hand how many Christians are more than ok with misrepresentation which, is something that we see repeatedly when many Christians post on the internet. It is killing religion, thankfully.
Young-earth creationists first seized upon Schweitzer’s work after she wrote an article for the popular science magazine Earth in 1997 about possible red blood cells in her dinosaur specimens. Creation magazine claimed that Schweitzer’s research was “powerful testimony against the whole idea of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.” This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.”
Well a lot of weird stuff happens at religious sites? Somewhere in India there's a statue of some deity or other wot weeps tears of blood all the time.
Christians just believe there's something magical about believing that Jesus died to absorb their sins. There's no requirement to disbelieve in evolution. I've even heard Christians say that evolution is simply the mechanism of creation and the bible oversimplifies it for the audience that first read it. I shrug at this. The real problem is their religion makes no sense. I'm a little skeptical of the 521 years thing. I'm sure if I froze DNA to near absolute zero in a vacuum it would last longer, though conditions that ideal would be hard to find naturally. Part of the problem appears to be that LiveScience got it wrong. https://www.livescience.com/23861-fossil-dna-half-life.html They said 521 represents "ideal conditions," but this is based upon a particular set of conditions in New Zealand, in moas, 600 to 8000 years old. They had consistent environmental conditions, but I didn't see any reason to even hypothesize that they were the best possible, and even if hypothesized they wouldn't know since they haven't studied other conditions. Furthermore, even the figure of 521 years is 400 times slower than their previous model predicted, which shows they started with a low baseline of knowledge about how this works. So basically, this is science in progress. It's interesting data that tells us how DNA can decay in particular circumstances, but it doesn't give a clear picture of what's possible. More studies are needed. That's how it works.
What are your reliable sources for scientists having sequenced (or even identified) actual DNA from a 68 million year old fossil. There are definitely reports of possible identification of blood cells and proteins but nothing I’ve see about surviving identifiable DNA.
