Dino bone protein confirmed, according to an article in Science Daily, 29 July 2009. In 2007 a group of researchers claimed they had identified seven peptides (protein fragments) in a well preserved T rex bone. There was some dispute about these results as proteins are known to degrade so fast that within thousands of years they would have disappeared, but dinosaurs are believed to have died out many millions of years ago. Some critics claimed the protein remains were the result of contamination with modern day proteins, so the researchers have now reanalysed the material and concluded: “In summary, we find nothing obviously wrong with the Tyrannosaurus rex [analysis from 2007]. The identified peptides seem consistent with a sample containing old, quite possibly very ancient, bird-like bone, contaminated with only fairly explicable proteins. Hemoglobin and collagen are plausible proteins to find in fossil bone, because they are two of the most abundant proteins in bone and bone marrow.”
Editorial Comment: If there was nothing wrong with their chemical analysis we await eagerly for them to come to grips with the clash between known rate of protein decay and the belief that T rex died out 70 million years ago. Either these peptides have defied the observed protein decay rate, or the bone is not millions of years old. Such finds are little problem for Biblical creationists, whose world view would have the first dinosaur remains being quickly buried for the first time during the flood of Noah at the earliest, and in any catastrophic event between the flood and dinosaur extinction. (Ref. time, chemistry, reptiles)
Evidence News, 5 August 2009