Re: Pigment Or Bacteria? The Idea Of 'Color' In Fossil Feathers Gets A Rethink

[Ruben <ruben@mrbrklyn.com>]

On 03/06/2014 08:43 AM, Paul H. wrote:
> Pigment Or Bacteria? The Idea Of 'Color' In Fossil
> Feathers Gets A Rethink, Science 2.0, March 6, 2014
> http://www.science20.com/news_articles/pigment_or_bacteria_idea_color_fossil_feathers_gets_rethink-131025
>
> Pigment or Bacteria? Researchers Re-examine the
> Idea of ‘Color’ in Fossil Feathers by Tracey Peake
> North Carolina State University News Services
> http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/tp-feathercolor/
>
> The paper is:
>
> Moyer, A. E., W. Zheng, E. A. Johnson, M. C.
> Lamanna, D.-q. Li, K. J. Lacovara, and M. H.
> Schweitzer, 2014, Melanosomes or Microbes:
> Testing an Alternative Hypothesis for the Origin
> Scientific Reports. no. 4, Article no. 4233
> doi:10.1038/srep04233
> http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140228/srep04233/full/srep04233.html
>
> Yours,
>
> Paul H.
not good science.  This paper is based on an experiment with chicken 
feathers to show that such microscopic structures can be made by growing 
bacteria on chicken feathers.  So what.  Now bury it in a wet anaerobic 
sediment  for a 100 million years and see then see if you get these 
structures as well as that they form such elegant patterns over the body 
of the animal, emulating a very naturalistic design and rational 
topography along the flight feathers and such...

The approach, IMO, just doesn't fly.