Dino DNA

Surprise. Scientists have been very wrong about something. The article makes small note of it while focusing on the amazing possibility that someone could pick up some credible amount of Dino DNA. Considering the shape of the Mammoth DNA taken from the Jarkov mammoth of "Raising the Wooly Mammoth" Fame it would be unlikely that they will get more than fragments. But if they get anything it will be an amazing discovery. Sort of lost in the shuffle is how this shakes up that little concept know as the process of fossilization. Be interesting to see how they resolve the age of the bone... soft squeezable flexible biological matter does not jive with the current theory of how fossils form.

One possible answer is that the bones just are not as old as is thought and whoa nelly would that throw a lot of things for a loop. But it might just throw some light on some of the more questionable areas of Evolution... such as how the hell did anything develop wings gradually ? If Dino Bones are significantly younger than previously thought then the whole time scale of Earth changes and leads to a serious reduction in the massive amount of time needed for Darwin's magic to do its thing. This could lend a lot of credence to the idea of punctuated equilibrium and radically lower estimates of the amount of time it took life to form on earth. DNA is neat. But I think the potential shake up of the age of fossils could be the bigger eventual piece of information that comes out of this.

On the other hand it might just be that someone will find where some poor assumptions where made in the past and given the sanctity of old age ( ie no one every thought to challenge it and the longer it hung around the more weight it carried ). Unlikely that any of the larger bones have ever been intentionally split before now so its possible the evidence needed to understand some up until now guessed at aspect of fossil formation since new evidence has finally come to light courtesy of some happy circumstances. Amazing how much science owes to odd coincidences of events.... even now in this day and age of 'supreme' knowledge.