Blood parasites in dino bones found, according Smithsonian Magazine 18 November 2020 and Cretaceous Research 15 October 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104672.
A group of scientists in Brazil were studying a deformity in a leg bone of a titanosaur, which they thought could be a bone tumour. When they examined it under a microscope they found microscopic parasites embedded in the bone. They also found abnormalities seen in bones damaged by osteomyelitis – inflammation caused by infection getting into the bone. The dinosaur infection extended from deep inside the bone to the surface, and may have been associated with open wounds on the dinosaur’s skin.
The research team wrote in their report: “This may be the earliest occurrence of infectious bone disease associated with parasites, adding new information to the complex biogeographic and evolutionary history of parasitic ailments”.
Link: Smithsonian
Editorial Comment: This is not the first evidence dinosaurs suffered from parasitic diseases, although it is the first report of parasites actually being preserved.
Osteomyelitis does not require any evolution. It is the result of pre-existing microbes getting into pre-existing bones, either directly from the outside world when a bone is broken and pierces the skin, or by bloodborne spread from a site of infection somewhere else in the body. Living bones have an extensive blood supply with many tiny blood vessels coursing through them, so it is easy for microbes in the blood to get trapped in a bone and stay there.
How ever this dinosaur acquired an infection, it would have caused a lot of pain and disability. As such, it is a challenge to those foolish Christians who want to believe the fossil record is evidence that God used evolution to create. When God completed the creation, which included dinosaurs, He declared it to be “very good” (Genesis 1:31). The fossil record is a record of death, disease and destruction. None of these processes are very good, and they did not come into the world until after human sin and God’s judgement.
Creation Research News 2 December 2020
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