Soft Tissue in Dinosaurs
Soft Tissue in Dinosaurs
The plot in Jurassic Park talks about recovering DNA from dinosaur blood. But the idea of recovering intact tissue from possibly 65+ million years ago seemed extremely unlikely. Then I stumbled across some evolutionist / creationist controversy I had been unaware of for years now, and a theory that Iron can act as a preservative.
It’s a very long post, so I’m putting a Read More break here.
First I heard about the iDINO project.
https://www.creationresearch.org/index.php/current-projects/item/87-idino-investigation-of-dinosaur-intact-natural-osteo-tissue/87-idino-investigation-of-dinosaur-intact-natural-osteo-tissue
...In 2012 the Society began its study of un-fossilized tissue found in dinosaur fossils. These fossils are typically dated by the standard geologic time scale as at least 60 million years old. In the past decade many studies have documented the presence of pliable tissue in these so-called ancient fossils. In addition to soft-tissue, intact cells and protein fragments have been isolated and described...
..."Soft-tissue" evidence has been publicized in several major newspapers and magazines, drawing much attention from both evolutionists and creationists. How could fossils that are millions of years old still contain any detectable tissue or intact proteins? All observed evidence of protein decay and degradation shows that these are fragile biomolecules that are readily degraded by numerous environmental conditions, including heat, pH changes, microbial activity, and ground radiation. How are such fragile molecules still found in these so-called ancient fossils?...
I found this to be very interesting. The next bit of information I found was on livescience.com, which I personally consider the Fox News of science, as in I question every last thing I read there.
http://www.livescience.com/41537-t-rex-soft-tissue.html
"...The controversial discovery of 68-million-year-old soft tissue from the bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex finally has a physical explanation. According to new research, iron in the dinosaur's body preserved the tissue before it could decay..."
"..."The free radicals cause proteins and cell membranes to tie in knots," Schweitzer said. "They basically act like formaldehyde."...
"...Formaldehyde, of course, preserves tissue. It works by linking up, or cross-linking, the amino acids that make up proteins, which makes those proteins more resistant to decay..."
This last bit made me cringe. From what I understood, soaking something in actual Formaldehyde tended to do terrible things to tissues, so that things like DNA sampling would become impossible. I'm not saying the iron preservation concept is exactly the same as Formaldehyde, but Schweitzer did make the association. Let me elaborate on that analogy a little bit.
http://nij.gov/topics/forensics/evidence/dna/basics/pages/identifying-to-transporting.aspx
According to the National Institute of Justice, "the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice",
Transportation and Storage
The first responding officer may be called upon to transport evidence from a crime scene. As with any evidence, the officer should ensure that the chain of custody is maintained. In addition, they should be aware that direct sunlight and warmer conditions may degrade DNA, and avoid storing evidence in places that may get hot, such as the trunk of the police car. To best preserve DNA evidence, store in a cold environment.
Any probative biological sample that has been stored dry or frozen, regardless of age, may be considered for DNA analysis. Nuclear DNA from blood and semen stains more than 20 years old has been analyzed successfully using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Samples that have been stored wet for an extended period of time should be considered for testing only using PCR and may be unsuitable for DNA analysis. Mitochondrial DNA analysis has been performed on very old bones, teeth, and hair samples.
Samples generally considered unsuitable for testing with current techniques include embalmed bodies (with the possible exception of bone or plucked hairs), pathology or fetal tissue samples that have been immersed in formaldehyde or formalin for more than a few hours (with the notable exception of pathology paraffin blocks and slides ), and urine stains. Other samples such as feces, fecal stains, and vomit can potentially be tested, but are not routinely accepted by most laboratories for testing.
That's basically why the Formaldehyde reference made me cringe. You'll have preserved material, but it won't be in very good shape as far as any kind of testing, especially if you intend to look for any intact DNA.
Smithsonian.com also has some things to say about the subject,
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur-shocker-115306469/?page=1
...Probing a 68-million-year-old T. rex, Mary Schweitzer stumbled upon astonishing signs of life that may radically change our view of the ancient beasts...
As did History.com,
http://www.history.com/news/scientists-find-soft-tissue-in-75-million-year-old-dinosaur-bones
...Scientists Find Soft Tissue in 75-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Bones...
Royal Society Publishing has an article about a study done on the subject of Iron as a preservative.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1775/20132741
A role for iron and oxygen chemistry in preserving soft tissues, cells and molecules from deep time
...The persistence of original soft tissues in Mesozoic fossil bone is not explained by current chemical degradation models... Iron chelators increased fossil tissue immunoreactivity to multiple antibodies dramatically, suggesting a role for iron in both preserving and masking proteins in fossil tissues...
Note that this small quote is taken from a wall of technical references and methods which the study used.
However, the Institute for Creation Research gives a different view on that research and the assumptions made.
http://www.icr.org/article/dinosaur-soft-tissue-preserved-by-blood/
...Publishing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Mary Schweitzer led a team that showed how iron atoms from blood adhere to and preserve blood vessels.1 The team placed ostrich bone blood vessels in water and watched them disintegrate in less than a week. They then treated another set of ostrich blood vessels with concentrated blood, and the treated blood vessels still looked fresh after two years of sitting on the lab bench.
They postulated that iron generates chemically reactive oxy radicals that help adjacent proteins bond, preserving their overall structure in a process called cross-linking. The way a fried egg resists rotting longer than a raw, cracked egg might illustrate this effect.
“Oxy radicals also facilitate protein cross-linking in a manner analogous to the actions of tissue fixatives (e.g. formaldehyde), thus increasing resistance of these ‘fixed’ biomolecules to enzymatic or microbial digestion,” according to Schweitzer and her colleagues.1
These results are unique and compelling. But do they really justify the study authors’ claim that this iron preservation phenomenon explains how dinosaur tissues lasted for tens of millions of years?...
...Iron does appear to preserve tissues, even keeping blood vessels intact at room temperature for two years. Could iron keep soft tissues intact for millions of years? At least four reasons show why the study’s results, amazing though they are, answer with a clear “No.”
First, “Ostrich vessels were incubated in a concentrated solution of red blood cell lysate,” according to the study authors.1 Their procedure involved extracting and purifying iron from blood. But ancient dinosaur and other fossils did not have the advantage of scientists treating their carcasses with a blood-soup concentrate.
Second, many of the still-fresh fossil biochemicals described in the literature do not show evidence of nearby iron. For example, researchers have encountered bone cells called osteocytes locked inside dinosaur bones, including a Triceratops horn core.2 These cells have fine, threadlike extensions that penetrate the bone’s mineral matrix through tiny tunnels called canaliculi. Could concentrated blood penetrate and preserve those almost inaccessible bone cells?
Schweitzer and her coauthors think so. They wrote, “In life, blood cells rich in iron-containing HB [hemoglobin] flow through vessels, and have access to bone osteocytes through the lacuna-canalicular network.”1 Yet, the study authors did not demonstrate this supposed access, they merely asserted it.
For example, have experiments shown that canaliculi can wick blood puree, despite having tiny diameters on the order of 0.0004 millimeters? Also, how could iron-rich preservative “have access to” tiny tunnels already clogged with osteocytes? Other examples of original soft tissues without these iron particles include mummified dinosaur and lizard skin.3,4
Third, for experimental control, the Royal Society authors kept ostrich vessels in water to watch them rot.1 Does this resemble the burial conditions of dinosaurs, which are mostly dry today and have been primarily dry perhaps since the day of burial? Water accelerates tissue decay by providing for microbes and by facilitating degradative chemistry. So by adding water, these scientists may have rigged their “control” sample to show a higher-than-expected decay rate difference.
The researchers then compared their hemoglobin-soaked samples to the watered-down samples and wrote, “In our test model, incubation in HB increased ostrich vessel stability more than 240-fold, or more than 24000% over control conditions.”1 If both their control and test models used unrealistic conditions, then they dulled the edge of their entire argument.
Fourth, just because this iron increases the “resistance of these ‘fixed’ biomolecules to enzymatic or microbial digestion” does not necessarily mean that it increases resistance of these “fixed” biomolecules to degrading chemical reactions.1 In other words, these authors have again shown that iron inhibits microbes, but they did not show that it inhibits the oxidation and hydrolysis reactions known to relentlessly convert tissues into dust...
At this point, I've realized I copy / pasted most of that article, but the only parts I didn't I felt were repetitions. Please do read the article in its entirety.
Again, the link is http://www.icr.org/article/dinosaur-soft-tissue-preserved-by-blood/
In my own words, the study appears to show that if you create a super concentrate from the iron in the body, it can act as a preservative. But as stated in the article, that's extremely unrealistic.
And so I don't appear to be trying to vilify Schweitzer, the article on Smithsonian.com states,
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur-shocker-115306469/?page=3
...Young-earth creationists also see Schweitzer’s work as revolutionary, but in an entirely different way. They 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.” For her, science and religion represent two different ways of looking at the world; invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science. After all, she says, what God asks is faith, not evidence. “If you have all this evidence and proof positive that God exists, you don’t need faith. I think he kind of designed it so that we’d never be able to prove his existence. And I think that’s really cool.”...
I don't really agree with the Young Earth Creationists about the short time line. I think God took a bit longer to put things together. And I think Schweitzer on some level really wants to be accepted by the scientific community and might not be as critical of her own findings as she should be. I do find the idea of soft tissues being preserved for millions of years by iron to be questionable. Overall, I find the whole thing fascinating and hope that the scientific community doesn't blindly accept the iron theory presented without further study. But I doubt they will, because challenging the best working theory could be seen as doubting evolution. And with the current hostilities against all religion being the popular thing to do, I don't see any evolutionists volunteering to "help the other side".
