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Natural Science Forum / Biology / Paleontology / March 2006Tyrannosaurus rex tissue preserved
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/03/24/t-rex050324.html T. rex tissue preserved Last Updated Mon, 04 Apr 2005 11:28:59 EDT CBC News WASHINGTON - Paleontologists who chipped a 70-million year old Tyrannosaurus rex fossil out of sandstone say they have found soft tissue including what appears to be blood vessels. The discovery was made when they broke the giant creature's thighbone in order to fit in onto a helicopter to transport it. These undated photos provided by the journal Science show demineralized fragments of tissues lining the marrow cavity of a Tyrannosaurus rex femur. (AP photo) Lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University describes the material inside the fossilized bone as transparent, flexible cell-like structures. "The vessels and contents are similar in all respects to blood vessels recovered from ... ostrich bone," the team reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science. Experts believe studying the soft tissue may help answer questions about whether dinosaurs were cold blooded or warm blooded, as well as clarifying their relationship to living animals such as birds. The fossil was retrieved at a dig in Montana. [another site said from the Hell Creek formation] It is rare for paleontologists to find soft tissues in fossils. The team's next step is to see if they can identify DNA in their samples. [photographs of tissue on site] > http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/03/24/t-rex050324.html > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Tyrannosaurus rex fossil out of sandstone say they have found soft > tissue including what appears to be blood vessels. Those are some pretty old news. About a year, in fact. >> http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/03/24/t-rex050324.html >> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >> Tyrannosaurus rex fossil out of sandstone say they have found soft >> tissue including what appears to be blood vessels. >Those are some pretty old news. About a year, in fact. And yet still enormously interesting. Has anyone heard anything new about this?  SignatureJohn Brock jbrock@panix.com > >> http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/03/24/t-rex050324.html > >> [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > And yet still enormously interesting. Has anyone heard anything > new about this? As I heard, it was't "tissues" as such, but petrified remains of blood vessels etc, and the hope of extracting DNA was, IIUC, basically invented by the journalist. >> >> http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/03/24/t-rex050324.html >> >> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >> >> Tyrannosaurus rex fossil out of sandstone say they have found soft >> >> tissue including what appears to be blood vessels. >> >Those are some pretty old news. About a year, in fact. >> And yet still enormously interesting. Has anyone heard anything >> new about this? >As I heard, it was't "tissues" as such, but petrified remains of blood >vessels etc, and the hope of extracting DNA was, IIUC, basically >invented by the journalist. I never got the impression -- even from the newspapers -- that there was going to be usable DNA, but I was stunned by the simple fact of the preservation of any of the original soft tissue, still soft and flexible. What I am curious about is whether that evaluation has held up, or whether the "tissue" turned out in the end to be something else entirely, and the reinterpretation just never hit the papers. SignatureJohn Brock jbrock@panix.com >>> >> http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/03/24/t-rex050324.html >>> >> [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > something else entirely, and the reinterpretation just never hit > the papers. They should have found out something. I don't mean readable DNA but protein or something. > >> >> http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/03/24/t-rex050324.html > >> >> [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > something else entirely, and the reinterpretation just never hit > the papers. It wasn't the original soft tissue, but mineralized remains of same. >> >> >> http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/03/24/t-rex050324.html >> >> >> [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > >It wasn't the original soft tissue, but mineralized remains of same. But what about the original reports that the tissue was flexible and even "stretchy"? Were those reports incorrect, or were the original tissues replaced with some kind of flexible and stretchy mineral that I don't know about? SignatureJohn Brock jbrock@panix.com I suggest doing a search on terms something like: Tyrannosaurus soft tissue protein DNA Schweitzer and read some of the many reports, some no doubt less accurate than others. The recent flurry has been related to announcements at the AAAS a couple of weeks ago, but there were already two high-profile publications on this stuff last year. The preserved soft tissues are not mineralised; they're what's left after the bone mineral is dissolved away. These fossils are preserved bone retaining original tissues, not petrifactions, replacements, pseudomorphs etc. Cheers, John it is verry bossible that tissue could be preserved for a verry long time or indefinatly, this is the principle behind canning. first the bactiria infected in such tissue has to be killd by some means how this might happen is extreme cold shortly after inundation in mineral deposit, just like the food in a jar or can it would be preserved and the lack of light would prevent damage frome rays. the question is did they manage to ferther preserve theis tissue enough to clone it, most likely the verry exposure of this tissue to the elements caused it to ferther decay and thus lose all hope of a clone and the fact that they had to mess with it ti determine its flesability would have ingected it. they would have a matter of miniuts befor complete loss of viable sells for a clone. >I suggest doing a search on terms something like: > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >bone retaining original tissues, not petrifactions, replacements, >pseudomorphs etc. Ironically, I noticed just yesterday that one of the cover stories in the April 2006 issue of Discover magazine involves exactly this subject! I haven't had a chance to read the article carefully, but it looks very interesting. For one thing, it seems that Mary Schweitzer, who discovered the soft tissue, is a devout evangelical Christian, but *not* a Creationist. Sometimes truth *is* stranger than fiction! SignatureJohn Brock jbrock@panix.com |
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