Drudge quotes the New York Times:
A 70-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex recently discovered in Montana, scientists reported today, has apparently yielded the improbable: soft tissues, including blood vessels and possibly cells, that “retain some of their original flexibility, elasticity and resilience.”
I’ll be interested to see how “scientists” explain how soft tissue survives seventy million years. I’m also interested to know how the seventy million year figure was reached. I suspect, of course, that they “know” it is seventy million years old because the dinosaur is supposed to have lived seventy million years ago. They might as well have said “a 70-gazillion-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex”; hardly anyone would have blinked an eye at that either.
As I’ve stated previously, I am a staunch advocate of the “I don’t know” theory of prehistoric timelines. I personally find Heinlein’s explanation in THE BOOK OF JOB that 6,000 years ago, God created an Earth that was billions of years old to be as likely as anything. But wouldn’t it be rather intriguing to see what the reaction of the scientific community would be to the discovery of a Tyrannosaurus rex with a monkey skeleton, or better yet, the soft-tissued remains of a homo sapien, in its belly? Coincidentally enough, I started writing just such a story not long after the last evolutionary contretemps* here.
*Strictly speaking, this may not be a precisely accurate usage here, as the word indicates a degree of unexpectedness. I can’t remember if I’d brought the subject up on purpose or not last time, but since I like the word and it is not necessarily inappropriate, I shall take the liberty of using it here. For the more obsessive-compulsive in our midst, please be assured that there is no need to investigate the matter. Not that this will stop you, of course.