Fatty tissues found in fossil bird from 48 million years ago

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 19, 2017

Cell biology, Darwinism, Intelligent Design}

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Uropygial gland/Sven Traenkner, Senckenberg

As a rule, soft parts do not withstand the ravages of time; hence, the majority of vertebrate fossils consist only of bones. Under these circumstances, a new discovery from the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Messel Pit” near Darmstadt in Germany comes as an even bigger surprise: a 48-million-year old skin gland from a bird, containing lipids of the same age. The oldest lipids ever recorded in a fossil vertebrate were used by the bird to preen its plumage.

…

“As shown by our detailed chemical analysis, the lipids have kept their original chemical composition, at least in part, over a span of 48 million years. The long-chain hydrocarbon compounds from the fossil remains of the uropygial gland can clearly be differentiated from the oil shale surrounding the fossil,” explains Mayr. The analysis offers proof that the fossil artifact constitutes one of the oldest preserved uropygial glands — a suspicion which had already been suggested by the arrangement at the fossil bird skeleton, albeit not finally confirmed.

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For Mayr and his colleagues, the discovery constitutes a milestone for paleontologists. “The 40-million-year-old lipids demonstrate the potential extent of preservation possible under favorable conditions — not just bones and hairs and feathers, as previously assumed. If we find more of these lipids, we will be able to better reconstruct the lifestyle of these animals. For example, it would be interesting to find out whether feathered dinosaurs, as the ancestors of birds, already possessed uropygial glands and preened their plumages,” adds Jakob Vinther of the University of Bristol, one of the study’s co-authors, in closing.Paper. (paywall) – Shane O’Reilly, Roger Summons, Gerald Mayr, Jakob Vinther. Preservation of uropygial gland lipids in a 48-million-year-old bird. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2017; 284 (1865): 20171050 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1050 More.

If analyzable soft tissue keeps turning up, paleontology will become a feeder field for molecular biology, which means that it can no longer be the preserve of Darwin’s Fossils, propping up their belief systems, secure in the fact that very few other people had or could get much evidence for anything else.

And so let’s have another look at the soft dinosaur tissues?

See also: Food for thought from that paywalled soft dino tissue article in Science

Is Mark Armitage’s soft dinosaur tissue work a replication of Mary Schweitzer? If so…?

Is there some reason that paleontologists do NOT want soft dinosaur tissue?

Dinosaur found with preserved skin

and

Dinosaur found with preserved tail feathers, skin

Comments

rvb @8
Mayr at Sciencedaily: "“As shown by our detailed chemical analysis, the lipids have kept their original chemical composition, at least in part, over a span of 48 million years. ... one of the most astonishing examples of soft part preservation in animals”

rvb: yes the lipids have kept their original chemical structure. What is amazing here is the detail of the preservation.
You mean the detail of chemical composition?
Mayr at Sciencedaily: "The discovery is one of the most astonishing examples of soft part preservation in animals."

rvb: the soft tissue is not preserved, the imprint of it is preserved.
No, that is not what Mayr is saying. He is not talking about imprints, instead, he talks about original chemical composition and soft part preservation.
rvb: Of course creationists believe stories about the preservation of ‘soft tissue’ means they can have a BBQ. These yokels deserve all the mockery they incomprehendingly get.
Well, your attempt at mockery wasn't quite successful, was it?Origenes_{October 21, 2017
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rvb8, you've once again betrayed either abject ignorance or willful dishonesty. After reading many of your responses here, I wonder if you will ever produce anything else. What's sad is that you are so very typical. An empty suit. By the way, calling me a YEC, may be the worse insult known to man in your shallow circles, but by any objective measure, Young Earth Creationism, no matter its logical conundrums, makes demonstrably more sense than atheistic materialism which relies on unimaginable faith in non-existent worlds to explain the unexplainable present, magic molecules, uncaused causes, self generating extra dimensional multi-verses, computer software that creates and writes itself and the blueprints for new organisms, un-resovable catch 22s, and winning the lotto by rightly picking 10^40,000 numbers in perfect order. You either don't understand how "in der Luft" your own worldview is, or you just don't care. Either way that makes you shallow and intellectually vacuous. Being oblivious to your own faith based presuppositions and the chasm sized holes in your belief system, is not the mark of a deep thinker, but you have already made that painfully clear. You might want to give up on the Talk Origins talking points and actually keep up with the latest research. Anyone who actually has been keeping up, knows that dozens of soft tissue samples have been found, starting with Mary Schweitzer's including samples which can been seen stretching under the microscope. This will get you started, but you still have a long way to go to catch up. Google "stretchy soft tissue," and you'll get plenty of vids to watch. You know it's bad for your side when they say the research, "has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists." Hahahaha! Whenever I see that phrase I get this image in my head of the old silent picture where the villain throws the damsel over his shoulder and ties her to the train tracks. At least she knew she was going to get run over by the train. You? Not so much. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur-shocker-115306469/Florabama_{October 21, 2017
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Origenes @7, yes the lipids have kept their original chemical structure. What is amazing here is the detail of the preservation. You may want to Google 'Burgess Shale', and see what fine detail has been fossilised their. Or perhaps the amazing detail of the Australian Ediacarian remains. The fact that these micro fossils preserve, micro detail is the amazing thing here. Of course creationists believe stories about the preservation of 'soft tissue' means they can have a BBQ. These yokels deserve all the mockery they incomprehendingly get.rvb8_{October 20, 2017
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rvb @5
rvb: Flora, the soft tissue is not preserved, the imprint of it is preserved.
Ah! Only the imprint. I guess that's why Mayr says at Sciencedaily.com:
"As shown by our detailed chemical analysis, the lipids have kept their original chemical composition, at least in part, over a span of 48 million years." ... "The discovery is one of the most astonishing examples of soft part preservation in animals. It is extremely rare for something like this to be preserved for such a long time," says Mayr.
He must be talking about "one of the most astonishing examples of" imprint (?) preservation. - - - - rvb is a teacher, what will this guy tell his students?Origenes_{October 20, 2017
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rvb8- You and yours cannot explain the existence of glands. So you lose anyway.ET_{October 20, 2017
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Flora @4, that's a comment worthy of Ken Ham at AIG. Flora, the soft tissue is not preserved, the imprint of it is preserved. Other soft tissue preservation include skin, feathers, and as here, glands. Now, don't go off to a creationist site and start saying, 'Look they found a preserved soft tissue gland!' They found the preserved imprint of a gland.rvb8_{October 19, 2017
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My leftovers don't last two weeks in my refrigerator, but I'm supposeded to believe that soft tissue lasts millions of years?Florabama_{October 19, 2017
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also smoking gun evidence the deep-time doctrine dogma time scales are greatly inflated over the scientific actuality.Pearlman_{October 19, 2017
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awstar at 1, it is getting to the point where it doesn't matter how they explain it. It's a new ball game and they will soon no longer be in charge of the rules.News_{October 19, 2017
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If analyzable soft tissue keeps turning up, paleontology will become a feeder field for molecular biology, which means that it can no longer be the preserve of Darwin’s Fossils, propping up their belief systems, secure in the fact that very few other people had or could get much evidence for anything else. And so let’s have another look at the soft dinosaur tissues?
Will this do? Keratin, proteins from 54-million-year-old sea turtle show survival trait evolution https://news.ncsu.edu/2017/10/schweitzer-sea-turtle/ This evidence is becoming commonplace now. Yet the thought that this evidence contradicts evolution and deep time is completely absent. Instead, the deceiving one is pivoting to explaining it as "exceptionally preserved biochemistry".awstar_{October 19, 2017
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