Soft Tissue Discovered In T-Rex Bone 345
kubla2000 writes, "Paleontologists have discovered soft tissue inside the fossilized thigh bone of a T-Rex. The tissue included blood vessels, bone cells, and perhaps even blood cells." From the article: "When paleontologists find fossilized dinosaur bones during a dig, they usually do everything in their power to protect them, using tools like toothbrushes to carefully unearth the bones without inflicting any damage. However, when scientists found a massive Tyrannosaurus rex thigh bone in a remote region of Montana a few months ago, they were forced to break the bone in two in order to fit it into the transport helicopter. This act of necessity revealed a startling surprise: soft tissue that had seemingly resisted fossilization still existed inside the bone. This tissue... was so well preserved that it was still stretchy and flexible."
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3, Interesting)
When I tracked this on some debate forums, I saw some general debate about how petrification might happen quicker or slower than we currently know. I'm not sure if this will or won't settle the matter, I assume it would only if petrification was the means we have been relying on to date materials.
But if there is one moral of science to take from this, it is that the real world has many suprises in store for what we assume to be pat scientific knowledge.
Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:d'oh! don't touch it! (Score:3, Interesting)
That is a serious answer.
Fossils straight out of the field are really heavy and a T-Rex thigh bone is really big.
You can't just strap that kinda weight to (one of) a helicopter's skids, assuming the helicopter had skids. Worse, most helicopters don't have weight bearing mounts for attaching nets to do a lift operation.
Or maybe that's just standard procedure for paleontologists with really big fossils.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes - but how did it SMELL? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the key point - surely? If it were rotten, then it would smell bloody awful (pun intended), and there'd by no chance of any DNA surviving. But what if it DID NOT smell awful? Surely that's an immediate indication of preservation?
And if it did NOT smell, you'd only have a TINY window of opportunity to perform tests on it - before oxygen started to do its oxidising thing.
Personally, I'd start placing bets with reputable gambling houses in the U.K. that a dinosaur will re re-constituted from ancestral DNA before 2050.
I'm reminded of the line by Dr. Malcolm;
"Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming." See Signature.
Update: Soft Tissue Discovered In T-Rex Bone (Score:5, Interesting)
From their discovery they were able to determine the sex of the dinosaur whose remains they had found (something to do with the build up of the bone and the soft tissue) - it was female. They also found that the bone structure had concentric circles much like a tree and thus they were able to tell the age of the dinosaur at the time of it's death (which was 18yrs old).
In the end he concluded that we would not be able to re-construct a dinosaur solely from the DNA found in the red blood cells since only a few of the DNA strands were intact enough to do a proper analysis and since chicken DNA has about a million different DNA strands that we'd be a long way from making a real dinosaur... not to mention that we do not currently have the know how on how to convert DNA into a living organism!
Here's a BBQ for grilling T-Rex ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OLD Repost! (Score:3, Interesting)
Why frog DNA? (Score:3, Interesting)
Dinosaurs (Greek for "monstrous lizards") were reptiles. Frogs are amphibians. Isn't a modern reptile, like an alligator, more closely related to dinosaurs, and thus its DNA is better suited for filling the gaps, than a frog's DNA?
Mod parent up Soft Tissue Discovered In T-Rex Bone (Score:4, Interesting)
Please to _not_ jump to the conclusion that DNA analysis will be futile. IMHO, quite the opposite.
In all liklihood, if we have ANY DNA available it will be a miracle. However if there is some, then the "some" will vary from cell to cell.
Thus if we map a large enough number of cells we can eventually build up the genome.
In seismic its called "stacking". You take a noisy blurry picture that you sample many times over and you "stack" it. The noise cancels. You are left with the picture.
Similarly, if you find any DNA at all, then if this is a fragment of what was in the cell to start with, and you have part of the picture.
These fragments will overlap and from these overlaps you will eventually be able to make perhaps even a complete picture. An example of this process is "diff" which most here will recognise as a programmers tool.
DNA is programming. Its molecular programming, but it is still programming.
What makes me quiver is the idea that we might be able to build up the DNA patterns by painstakingly replicating the DNA in each isolated cell and then stitching these DNA fragments together by matching the common parts of fragments found in different cells. It would be worse than putting together a jigsaw puzzle with the picture face down on the table... but it should be doable.
I suspect we will be able to tell that Dinos and Birds are, if not close cousins, then perhaps close 2nd cousins. In fact the birds by even be decendants. If decendants, then one would expect large amounts of dino DNA may still be found in bird DNA... and that it is just inactive or that its function is modified. The cell is a rather promiscous DNA xerox machine.
To go way out on a limb... if we can sequence the DNA and stitch it together, then we may be able to find living cells with a biochemistry close enough to Dino DNA that we can in fact make a working cell. Clearly we would be inserting artificial DNA into a cell. But it doesn't matter where the DNA comes from and how it came about - what matters is the proper sequence of DNA bases.
This is clearly along the idea that if you put enough monkeys in front of typewriters that they would create Shakespear's sonnets.
Well - the DNA stitching won't be random. The question is how much of the original picture is still preserved.
Every cell is a copy of every other cell in a given individual. As cells specialize they turn off some of the DNA. The DNA is still there.
Maybe some day we will actually be able to create a working Dino cell. Creataceous park... HERE WE GO!
Its an old story. I read the previous slashdot story last year. Probably our editors were bored on a Sunday morning and wanted to see if we would remember. Criticisms aside... your update is interesting.
So.. what progress has been made in the DNA studies?
Re:Here's a BBQ for grilling T-Rex ... (Score:1, Interesting)
well, bavaria, actually. yes, that's a whole bull on there. takes about 5 hours to finish
Unlikely (Score:3, Interesting)
But even then it would depend on how the concept of a "genetic clone" is seen by Talmudic lore.