More Soft Tissue Found in Old Fossils

A reptile skin fossilized in rock said to be 50 million years old has been found.  According to Science Daily, scientists at the University of Manchester reported the discovery of amide molecules in “fossilized soft tissue of a beautifully-preserved reptile.”  The original paper, accessible to the public, was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.¹ 
    According to Roy Wogelius, a geochemist who used infrared analysis on the fossil, “The mapped distributions of organic compounds and trace metals in 50 million year old skin look so much like maps we’ve made of modern lizard skin as a check on our work, it is sometimes hard to tell which is the fossil and which is fresh.”
    The use of infrared and X-ray technologies opens up new avenues for non-destructive exploration of fossilized material.  The article did not explain how the organic molecules could last for millions of years except to state that they are using “modern analytical chemistry and 21st century techniques to understand how such remarkable preservation occurs….”
    With their writeup, the BBC News presented pictures of the fossil and infrared data.  As for how the soft tissue survived, the BBC offered this explanation: “The details from the study suggest that when skin’s organic compounds began to break down, they formed a chemical bond with trace metals that, under certain circumstances, then go on to build a ‘bridge’ with the surrounding minerals.  A result of this process meant that the skin and remaining soft tissue was protected from further decomposition or further erosion” – but for 50 million years?  The reporter did not elaborate on how rarely this bridging occurs, or why it closely resembles modern gecko skin using the same analysis techniques.  According to the story, Wogelius and his team tried to analyze fossilized dinosaur skin said to be 67 million years old (12/03/2007), but were unable to map any biological structure – not because the soft tissue was absent, but because it tended to fall apart too easily.  The paper referenced the work by Mary Schweitzer on dinosaur soft tissue (01/30/2011, 04/30/2009).
    In a related article, Science Daily said, “A University of Alberta-led research team has discovered that insects that bore into trees as long ago as 90 million years, or as recently as last summer, leave a calling card that’s rich with information.”  The article mentioned samples of amber said to be 90 million and 17 million years old without any indication that there has been any evolutionary change over that expanse of time – a period in which evolutionists claim all the major mammals, including whales, evolved.  Instead, the press release simply ended, “This discovery will help researchers understand the history of insect infestations.”

1.  Edwards…Wogelius et al, “Infrared mapping resolves soft tissue preservation in 50 million year-old reptile skin,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, published online before print March 23, 2011, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2011.0135 (open access).

Watch out for the suggestive wording in articles like this.  The first article used the phrase “building blocks” twice.  That phrase is commonly used by evolutionists seeking to make the origin of life sound as easy as A-B-C.  The end of the article also talked about using the techniques to infer the long-term status of buried wastes, a red herring that sidesteps the damaging implications of finding still-intact soft tissue in rock alleged to be millions of years old.
    Over and over, articles like these promise readers that discoveries are helping scientists “understand” the world.  If they truly understood, they would admit that the evidence only makes sense if these fossils are recent.  The millions of years are not in the fossils in the rocks, remember, but in the rocks in evolutionists’ heads.