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2024-11-11

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Scientists Found a 520-Million-Year-Old Miracle: a Fossil With Brains and Guts Intact (www.popularmechanics.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Here's a much better source for this than Popular Mechanics.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Hey thanks. Didn't notice that article about this. It's much better

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

Yes, the title is complete BS. The half life of DNA alone is ~500 years.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ty for this by the by =) I see it's teeny-tiny, and that it's not so much that the soft tissue was found, but that the outline of its internal organs were left on record from lack of compression. I'm not sure how that happened, let alone how someone found such a small thing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Could you maybe edit the original post to include this better source?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago

Oddly enough, that source doesn't imply soft tissues were preserved. They can tell some things about its brain and guts based on outlines left behind. And also from what they know of other arthropod fossils from the same era - undercutting the uniqueness.

This one is special because it isn't smushed flat like most fossils in this deposit.