A trio of geologists has published what they called the first successful direct dating of dinosaur bone. They used a new laser technique to measure radioisotopes in the bone, yielding an age of millions of years.

But this "age" was not only the result of a broken radioisotope system, it was contrived to agree with previously assigned dates for the samples.

Many scientists rely on the assumption that radioactive elements decay at constant, undisturbed rates and therefore can be used as reliable clocks to measure the ages of rocks and artifacts. Most estimates of the age of the earth are founded on this assumption. However, new observations have found that those nuclear decay rates actually fluctuate based on solar activity.

The naming of newly-discovered fossils sometimes involves significant people or prominent associations. Darwinius masillae was named for British naturalist Charles Darwin. Dracorex hogwartsia was inspired by the dragons of the famed Harry Potter books. And now shipping company FedEx has been honored with a fossil of its own.

New data collected by secular researchers has confirmed what creation scientists discovered decades ago—geologists’ assumptions about radioactive decay are not always correct.

For about a century, radioactive decay rates have been heralded as steady and stable processes that can be reliably used to help measure how old rocks are. They helped underpin belief in vast ages and had largely gone unchallenged. But certain decay rates apparently aren’t as stable as some would hope.