Level After Red In Cubefield

The blood of the T-Rex

Fig. 1 - " Big Mike " è

uno scheletro di T-Rex

ottimamente conservato

Sul numero di "Le Scienze" di questo mese c'è un articolo di una paleontologa, Mary H. Schweitzer , sul ritrovamento di materiale organico nei fossili di dinosauro.



Uno specchietto nell'articolo spiega che si è sempre ritenuto che nei processi di fossilizzazione, con il passare del tempo, tutti i composti organici scomparissero, lasciando al loro posto solo resti minerali inerti; tanto che - da quando esiste la paleontologia - gli scienziati hanno ragionato solo sulle dimensioni e la forma delle ossa fossili.



La Schweitzer però ha trovato qualcosa strange in a very well-preserved fossil of Tyrannosaurus rex. Where there should have been a blood vessel saw the ruby-colored beads (see fig. 2 below), apparently very similar to the nucleated red blood cells in the blood of non-mammalian vertebrates. Possible that they were really residues of organic material, and perhaps even blood?

How should a scientist when he thinks he has discovered something that upsets date ideas for granted for centuries?

is not, in fact, paleontology, but I want to talk to the scientific method, so a couple of quote directly from the article:

After I requested opinions on the nature those red beads to several colleagues, the issue reached the ears of Jack Horner, curator of the museum and one of the leading experts in the world of dinosaurs, who wanted to see with his eyes. Frowning, stared through the eyepieces of the microscope for what seemed to me hours without saying a word. Then, up on me a frown and asked, "And what do you think they are?". I replied that I had no idea, but the size, shape and color were exactly the right ones because they were blood cells, and most were also in the right place. He gave a grunt: "Then show me are not." It was an irresistible challenge, which helped me, and I still helps to find the right way to pose the questions in my research work.

[...]

To demonstrate extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Scrupulous scientists make every effort to show that that their assumptions are wrong you prefer, before accepting that, after all, were correct.

So I spent the last twenty years trying to prove, with all experiments that have managed to make me come to mind, the falsity of the hypothesis that the material discovered by my colleagues and myself is really some component of the soft tissues of dinosaurs and other animals long gone.

not tell you how developed the research of Schweitzer but its my opinion, is an excellent summary of how science should work.

2 - Blood of dinosaur?

who does good science observes a phenomenon, and after formal hypothesis that explains it ... attempts to demolish it anyway. It does so because only if his intuition survives toughest test to demonstrate solid and has some hope of becoming a theory.

I crackpot , supporters of pseudo-scientific speculation and who makes bad science systematically refuse even to prendere in considerazione le spiegazioni diverse o le evidenze contrarie e in generale non accettano di mettere alla prova quello che affermano.



Non è un caso che il contributo delle pseudoscienze al progresso dell'umanità sia vicino a zero.

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Approfondimenti :

• Blood from stone: how fossils can preserve soft tissue (Scientific American)


• Blood from stone: additional resources , an annotated list of links to further reading about dinosaur soft tissues (Scientific American)


• T. Rex Blood? (PBS)


• Scientists recover T. rex soft tissue (MSNBC)


• Dinosaur Shocker (Smithsonian Magazine)