Soft tissue in 70-million year old T.Rex fossil...

[B.NyeTheUruk-Hai]

Just saw this on CNN.com:

Soft tissue found in T-rex fossil
Find may reveal details about cells and blood vessels of dinosaurs
Thursday, March 24, 2005 Posted: 3:14 PM EST (2014 GMT)


WASHINGTON (AP) -- For more than a century, the study of dinosaurs has been limited to fossilized bones. Now, researchers have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissue, including what may be blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex.

If scientists can isolate proteins from the material, they may be able to learn new details of how dinosaurs lived, said lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University.

"We're doing a lot of stuff in the lab right now that looks promising," she said in a telephone interview.

It was recovered dinosaur DNA -- the blueprint for life -- that was featured in the fictional recreation of the ancient animals in the book and film "Jurassic Park." Although that was science fiction, Schweitzer said she was not sure if scientists would be able to isolate dinosaur DNA fragments from the fossilized materials.

The soft tissues were recovered from the thighbone of a T. rex, known as MOR 1125, that was found in a sandstone formation in Montana. The dinosaur was about 18 years old when it died.

The bone was broken when it was removed from the site. Schweitzer and her colleagues then analyzed the material inside the bone.

"The vessels and contents are similar in all respects to blood vessels recovered from ... ostrich bone," they reported in a paper bring published Friday in the journal Science.

Because evidence has accumulated in recent years that modern birds descended from dinosaurs, Schweitzer said she chose to compare the dinosaur remains with those of an ostrich, the largest bird available.

Brooks Hanson, a deputy editor of Science, noted that there are few examples of soft tissues, except for leaves or petrified wood, that are preserved as fossils, just as there are few discoveries of insects in amber or humans and mammoths in peat or ice.

Soft tissues are rare in older finds. "That's why in a 70-million-year-old fossil it is so interesting," he said.

Matthew Carrano, curator of dinosaurs at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said the discovery was "pretty exciting stuff."

"You are actually getting into the small-scale biology of the animal, which is something we rarely get the opportunity to look at," said Carrano, who was not part of the research team.

In addition, he said, it is a huge opportunity to learn more about how fossils are made, a process that is not fully understood.

Richard A. Hengst of Purdue University said the finding "opens the door for research into the protein structure of ancient organisms, if nothing else. While we think that nature is conservative in how things are built, this gives scientists an opportunity to observe this at the chemical and cellular level." Hengst was not part of the research team.

John R. Horner of the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University, said the discovery is "a fantastic specimen," but probably is not unique. Other researchers might find similarly preserved soft tissues if they split open the bones in their collections, said Horner, a co-author of the paper.

Most museums, he said, prefer to keep their specimens intact.

Schweitzer said that after removing the minerals from the specimen, the remaining tissues were soft and transparent and could be manipulated with instruments.

The bone matrix was stretchy and flexible and there were long structures like blood vessels. She added that what appeared to be individual cells were visible, but could not say if they were blood cells.

She likened the process to placing a chicken bone in vinegar. The minerals will dissolve, leaving the soft tissues.

The research was funded by North Carolina State University and grants from N. Myhrvold and the National Science Foundation.

[Zyztem]

I can almost guarantee they will try to isolate DNA and play around with it. They would be able to answer hundreds of paleontology questions.

Can you say "Jurassic Park?" I knew you could!
-Mr. Rogers

[ALIENTheorist]

you got to be kidding me they'll F*** up badly! my only question is how in heck will they find an animal big enaugh to get it cloned.... an elephant? wow that's called being the dumb scientist which likes to screw with nature o well

[Zyztem]

Well, I'm thinking they'll try to do it like they talked about with the whole wooly mammoth cloning idea. They'll try to find the closest thing they can to use (for the mammoth, they wanted to use an elephant egg), so they'll probably try something reptilian (by egg, I mean the ova, not the actual shell). Once they are there, it should be no worries, as the popular belief is that they are egg-hatched. Once the egg is "fertilized," away it goes, as it'll develope it's own shell.

[Havoc Angel]

*If* they find enough intact DNA to make a clone and actually want to try it out i bet they go for some kind of bird like a ostrich. Birds are said to be the descendants of the dinosaurs so much closer in DNA than reptiles, which developed aside them. Besides i know of no reptile that lives nowadays which can lay big enough eggs.

But (alas) this is all fiction. They have not (yet) found a single intact DNA strand in any discovered (wet) tissue.

[emperorx1984]

Wow, tissue from a T-Rex, eh? Hmm. . . . .clone that mofo. . . .why? Cuz it would be fun!

[dutchie]

Species are going extinct EVERY DAY... Personally I would see more sense in bringing back the dodo than the T-rex - WE humans were personally responsible for consuming the entire population of dodo's. Dodo's are recent history. I wouldn't want some creature with ridiculously little arms and a ridiculously large head with teeth (and a voracious appetite for humans) back again...
Anyway - there is no way we can bring back all species that go extinct - there are simply too many. In fact, it's a natural occurence - at some point in history we will go extinct too (if we don't blow ourselves up before our time) due to some natural disaster (an airborn virus we won't find a cure for is my best bet).

[jjserio]

Paleontologists aren't interested in the DNA because they would like to produce Clones. However, even incomplete & fragmentary DNA will supply us with an incredible amount of information for study.

May 20, i'll be attending a lecture at the New Jersey State Museum by Jack Horner (the discoverer). Its going to be one of the best events this year in NJ. If your into paleontology i suggest you try & attend.

Visit my website:
www.JerseyFossils.com

~JJ

[jjserio]

One of the perks of this discovery is that unfunded closed sites are being rapidly re-opened right now. Most closed sites contain comman species, that are usually very fragmented & aren't worthy of funding. Now that were starting a soft tissue race, these sites will be re-examined for prospects. There will be alot of digging & bone breaking. My prediction is alot of soft tissue will be recovered in the next few years, regardless, paleontologists will be busy.

[dutchie]

Great! Good to see money flowing in that direction again.

But... did you not wonder WHY all of sudden funds are coming towards these projects again? Paleontologists aren't interested in DNA for cloning purposes? So, who IS interested in cloning then? Is that money coming from nowhere? Aren't you a bit naive in thinking it is just to fund SERIOUS non-cloning-orientated science!? Money has a habit of always having two properties: a source and a reason.

[jjserio]

Right now, the main concern is to better understand how fossils are formed.

Attempts of extracting DNA from dinosaurs has been going on for awhile now, this is nothing new.

The amazing part of this discovery was actually finding soft tissue outside of Amber. Theories have been around but to see it become reality is shocking to some.

However, don’t lose your head over this. Amber, which preserves soft tissue for millions of years, can only provide less than one millionth of its full sequence when extracted. So its highly unlikely to extract a full set of DNA this way.

So even if someone wanted to, they are no closer to cloning dinosaurs then they were before this discovery anyways. Therefore, this discovery didn't spark the future potential, your talking about.

We do want a blueprint of dinosaurs, but not because we want to make a Jurassic Park. Again, just a fragment of DNA could provide us with tons of information about the dinosauria species.

This is the only reason. To think otherwise wouldn't be rational, rather pure fantasy.

[dutchie]

Yes, I understand that it would be virtually impossible to extract a complete set of DNA from these findings - but that did not answer my question: why are there fundings appearing all of a sudden?? Surely, there must be some commercial or other interest playing a role in this...

[jjserio]

Paleontologists have always had a hard time leaving fossils to erode away & be lost forever, but if they cant justify museum spending, thats exactly what happens. This battle has been going on for more than a century.

This discovery is actually raising the percentage of future locals that will be worthy of excavating. Also, many buried sites will be reevaluated to determine whether or not they should be reopened.

These are the types of events needed to correct whats wrong with the so called "laws of collecting". I would like to see someone write a book on the subject.

[stewey]

Cloning is far from successful. Most clone experiments result in a very feeble creature that dies quickly.