RE: T.Rex DNA?

[Jeffrey Martz <jeffmartz@earthlink.net>]

<since DNA only lasts for 5000 years or so...>

        "5,000 years or so"?  Wow, that's an amazing coincidence...that just 
happens to be about how old creationists say the Earth is!  They have concrete 
proof!
       Some of you (particularly Tom Holze) may remember a geneticist at Ohio 
State(?) named Chip (or was it Chris?) Pretzman who was on the list a couple 
years ago.  He claimed (and last I heard, still claims) to have not only 
isolated dinosaur DNA from dinosaur bones, but gotten enough of it from enough 
species to use it in a phylogenetic analysis.  His conclusions were 
rather....unorthodox, and the discussion was pretty active for a while.  He was 
pretty confidant that he wasn't dealing with a contaminant due to the presence 
in the samples of an 18S ribosomal subunit.  This subunit characterizes 
eukaryotic ribosomes, so I'm guessing his reasoning is that it couldn't be a 
_bacterial_ contaminant (although there are plenty little critters with 
nucleated cells out there, namely protists and fungi).   Check the archives 
around 1995 or 1996 if you are interested.  Does anyone know if he has 
published anything?
      As far as I know, no one has ever proven Mesozoic DNA samples are not 
contaminants, although some stuff (including a Miocene plastid) is known from 
the Cenozoic.  Someone else who knows a little more on the subject will no 
doubt have more to say.

LN Jeff