Remarkable!

[Minimalist]

If true.

http://www.calacademy.org/science_now/h ... issue.html

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, including blood vessels, bone cells, and perhaps even blood cells, was so well preserved that it was still stretchy and flexible.

A scanning electron microscope revealed that the dinosaur blood vessels, which are 70 million years old, are virtually identical to those recovered from modern ostrich bones.

It's a good thing arch isn't around to see this!

[Beagle]

It's a good thing arch isn't around to see this!

You know what's happening Min? I haven't been home since Sat. morning. It does look like Frank gave him the boot.

You gotta give our mods credit - they have a lot more patience than I would have.

[john]

If true.

http://www.calacademy.org/science_now/h ... issue.html

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, including blood vessels, bone cells, and perhaps even blood cells, was so well preserved that it was still stretchy and flexible.

A scanning electron microscope revealed that the dinosaur blood vessels, which are 70 million years old, are virtually identical to those recovered from modern ostrich bones.

It's a good thing arch isn't around to see this!

min -

i think that the soft tissue in question was/is what was left over after the mineralized structure was dissolved in a series of acidic baths.

also, the portions of soft tissue were very very small.

i just dont want to have people left with the impression that they busted a dinosaur bone in half and soft stuff dripped out.

nonetheless, the potential of this evidence is enormous.

little bits of soft tissue somehow encapsulated by mineralization?



j

[Minimalist]

A scanning electron microscope revealed that the dinosaur blood vessels, which are 70 million years old, are virtually identical to those recovered from modern ostrich bones.

Yeah, John....this is an amazing find.....I'm just wondering why I haven't seen anything else about this story.

[john]

A scanning electron microscope revealed that the dinosaur blood vessels, which are 70 million years old, are virtually identical to those recovered from modern ostrich bones.

Yeah, John....this is an amazing find.....I'm just wondering why I haven't seen anything else about this story.

its been out for awhile.........











































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Week of March 26, 2005; Vol. 167, No. 13 , p. 195

Old Softy: Tyrannosaurus fossil yields flexible tissue

Sid Perkins

Scientists analyzing fragments of a Tyrannosaurus rex's leg bone have recovered pliable material containing structures that appear to be cells and blood vessels.


TENDER TOUCH. Demineralized fragments from a Tyrannosaurus rex leg bone contain fibrous areas (arrows) yielding structures that appear to be cells of a type found in living bone.
Science

Paleontologists usually find only a creature's hard body parts, such as bones, teeth, or shells, preserved as fossils. In the rare instances when internal organs, muscles, skin, and other soft body parts turn up, the original tissue has been replaced by minerals that create hard replicas, says Mary H. Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Sometimes, a soft tissue's shape is recorded by sediments that surround it.

Now, the first report of flexible material from a fossil describes an extraction from the femur, or upper leg bone, of a T. rex that lived about 68 million years ago in what is now Montana.

The researchers dissolved minerals from the fossil by soaking it in a series of slightly alkaline solutions. After a week, much of the remaining material was surprisingly soft and pliable, say the researchers. Many parts of the remains were translucent and fibrous, and they retained their elasticity after repeated cycles of dehydration and rehydration. Schweitzer and her colleagues report their findings in the March 25 Science.

Some stretchy, translucent samples were high in carbon and appeared to be part of a network of blood vessels, says Schweitzer. Similar demineralization experiments on modern-day ostrich bones—with an added step required to digest the collagen strengthening those bones—yielded blood vessels of a similar size and texture, she reports.

The researchers squeezed round, microscopic structures out of the presumed T. rex blood vessels. Those small spheres, which ranged from dark red to deep brown, may be red blood cells, says Schweitzer.

Also, some fibrous remains contained small, elongated features that look like cells called osteocytes, which are found in mature bones.

Finally, a spongy material extracted from the bones triggered a chemical response in tests to detect proteins commonly found in bones of modern chickens and cows.

Using the extraction technique, Schweitzer and her colleagues subsequently recovered what appear to be blood vessels and osteocytes from two other well-preserved specimens of T. rex. They've also obtained osteocytes from an 80-million-year-old hadrosaur, a plant-eating dinosaur.

The state of preservation noted in the new study is "improbable but obviously not impossible," says Cameron J. Tsujita, a paleontologist at the University of Western Ontario in London. The osteocytes are "dead ringers" for those present in living vertebrates, he notes. As for the purported blood cells, he says that he "can't really think of what else they could be."

This is a "totally novel discovery," says Derek E.G. Briggs, a paleontologist at Yale University. The tissue preservation that Schweitzer's team has described may be more commonplace than scientists might expect, he says.

Additional analyses of the T. rex fossils, as well as of material from other specimens, could provide insight into the early stages of fossilization, says Briggs. Such information may also reveal new details of dinosaur physiology and metabolism.

If you have a comment on this article that you would like considered for publication in Science News, send it to editors@sciencenews.org. Please include your name and location.
To subscribe to Science News (print), go to
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References:

Schweitzer, M.H., et al. 2005. Soft-tissue vessels and cellular preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex. Science 307(March 25):1952-1955. Abstract available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/a ... /5717/1952.

Further Readings:

Perkins, S. 2004. Growth spurt: Teenage tyrannosaurs packed on the pounds. Science News 166(Aug. 14): 99. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040814/fob1.asp.

Sources:

Derek E.G. Briggs
Geology and Geophysics Department
Yale University
P.O. Box 208109
New Haven, CT 06520-8109

Mary H. Schweitzer
Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695

Cameron J. Tsujita
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario N6A 5B7
Canada



From Science News, Vol. 167, No. 13, March 26, 2005, p. 195.












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[john]

now about that thar neanderthal dna.................


j

[Minimalist]

Ah...I got it at another site by an old poster on this board, Rokcet Scientist. The only date visible was the 2006 copyright.

[Guest]

How can a "70 million year old" dinosaur bone have fresh soft tissue inside?

This news is over a year old, where have you all been? (Concentrating on "real science" I guess.)

[Guest]

Hey min, "stretchy and pliable substances," sounds like more than a little bit.

[Essan]

Hey min, "stretchy and pliable substances," sounds like more than a little bit.

Let's get this straight, it wasn;t found in that condition:-

The researchers dissolved minerals from the fossil by soaking it in a series of slightly alkaline solutions. After a week, much of the remaining material was surprisingly soft and pliable, say the researchers.

It took a week of soaking in an alkaline solution to remove the minerals. Effectively reversing the fossilisation process.

Chances are, now we know it works, many over bones can be treated the same way.

[Guest]

It's soft organic material within the bones, not the bones themselves, so how did soft organic material remain without decomposing through "70 million years?"

[marduk]

so you don't understand how decomposition works either now Jim ?
hmmm
why don't the bones in your legs decompose in the 50 or so years since your birth ?

[Guest]

Wow, Marduk, I just don't know.

[Guest]

Marduk, bet you wish you could take your last one back.

[stan]

Well, since it's a t-rex bone...I'll just say I recently listened to
Michael Chrichton's THE LOST WORLD on audiocassette.

The most interesting parts of it were the descriptions of the behavior
of the various species of dinosaurs. Like the parenting behavior of the t-rexes. The human characters were mostly scientists, and they tended to lecture to each other, so there are a lot of scientific bits.

Crichton at least does his homework.