I was reading with in the science articles of my Yahoo, came across this cover story, and is is quite fascinating, but on the same hand leaves me a bit concerned for the implications that this find can be used for. Actually, we know they can do what they are talking about or extrapolating for the sciences, but what are the implications of this type of thing coming too fruition?
QuotePreserving soft tissue
Possibly even more amazing is the fact that this soft-bodied, microscopic creature survived the vagaries of time. Preserving a soft-bodied organism like this one for so long is tricky and requires some outside intervention to keep the tissues from degrading. In this case, rather than tree resin (called amber when hardened) that preserved dino DNA in the bellies of amber-trapped mosquitoes in "Jurassic Park," a mucous cocoon did the trick.
Though they published these in an incorrect manner (IMHO) it seems there has been only one other fossil ever found such as this with soft body tissue still present. And as the statement up above correlates too some very scary sciences, also just my Opinion.
QuoteThe cocoon looks like those produced by living leeches, such as the medicinal leech Hirudo medicinalis. Encased inside was a bell animal that looked similar to species in the genus Vorticella; its body extends 25 microns (about the width of some human hairs) with a tightly coiled stalk about twice that long. And like all eurkaryotes, the organism was equipped with a nucleus — in this case, a large horseshoe-shaped nucleus inside the main body. (A micron is one-millionth of a meter.)
This bell animal lived during the Late Triassic Period, when the Earth was much warmer, with dense rain forests flourishing along what is today the Transantarctic Mountain Range where it was found. At the time, Antarctica was part of the supercontinent Gondwana, though it was still located at high latitudes.
Past research has suggested this coiled stalk, which is used to attach to substrates, may be one of the fastest cellular engines known, changing from a telephone wirelike structure to a tight coil at a speed of about 8 centimeters (3.1 inches) per second — the equivalent of a human being walking the across more than three football fields in one second.
http://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-creature-found-200-million-old-cocoon-140059752.html (http://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-creature-found-200-million-old-cocoon-140059752.html)
The whole page is good reading, insightful to the approximate time of 200M years ago, hopefully good returns come from this find with DNA sequencing and see if it has any DNA connection with another living thing we are aware of.
With Great Respect.
1Worldwatcher
Thanks for sharing that article 1ww!
I Just finished reading through that yahoo article, which is mind bending to say the least :o
I cannot help but think that in our climate cycle right now we tend to think this is amazing but in the grand scheme of life and cycles it is probably quite normal :D
I still find it amazing all the same though.
Cheers mate :)
Thanks Soma, I too think these finds are rather expected, but for the sciences involved, and the apparent tech available, I am sure we can still be amazed with what we currently interpret as accurate interpretations of life as it was in the Chronology of earth.
We will have to wait and see if there is any DNA recognizable association with some long living ancestor of the DNA extracted, very exciting for the research of full fledged wanting to understand.
I am a receiver of the magazine "Archeology" and have read in there a recent story that the archaeologists are intentionally pushing back Carbon dating too approximately 2X's as originally thought, now with in mind, this would have be a deduction that would reflect such thing's as ancient Egyptian, Mayans, Aztecs and even Sumerians 10's of thousands of years, absolutely astonishing if you ask me..
You can go to website if you wish for 'Archeology . Org' Magazine at:
http://www.archeology.org (http://www.archeology.org)
Gave you the direct URL, kind of picky folks when it comes to Copyright Infringements, so enjoy their provided website, good stuff in those magazines for sure.
1WW