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Scientists Find Soft Tissue in T-Rex Fossil
douglips writes "Reuters is running a story about a shocking development in paleontology: A T-Rex thigh bone fossil was reluctantly broken to fit in a transport helicopter, and inside soft tissue was found. It appears to include blood vessels and bone cells. Scientists hope to isolate proteins, and perhaps even DNA."
Let the cloning begin!
hail our new cloned-DNA T-rex overlor-*CHOMP*
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
If I said it once, I've said it a thousand times...
Modern helicopters are just too small!
This is not the first identification of soft protein laden tissue that has been extracted from dinosaur tissue as Mary Schweitzer at North Carolina State University has extracted these tissues from other tissues as well, so there is a precedent.
Of course getting actual DNA from these tissues will be a long shot due to its fragile nature, but protein sequence may prove very informative in letting us define exactly where genetic lineages have gone over evolution.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Now we know that when the cloned T-Rex escapes, if you stand perfectly still it won't see you!
Also, do NOT run directly to the shitter.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
I'm slightly skeptical. The article talks about soft tissue, but none of the scientists even try to explain how soft tissue could have survived for seventy million years?
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
those damn SUVs better watch out. Yeah, who owns the road now %^*@$!
It'll be interesting to see if we can find hominid remains in similar states of preservation, so we can learn more about the layout of our evolutionary tree. Then again, a T-Rex bone is huge, and that may be the only reason it managed to keep anything preserved.
Homer: He may be rich, but money can't buy everything!
Marge: Like what?
Homer: . . . A Dinosaur!
I want to be the first 35 year old kid on my block with a T-Rex. Leash laws be damned!
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
Why would a T-Rex be using Kleenex?
Hello?... Is this thing on?
meaty goodness
in my professional paleontological opinion (not), it needs a nice marinade
fre up the BBQ, lets see what T Rex tastes like
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
WHY did it have to be the DNA of a T-Rex? Why couldn't it have been a nice herbivore, like a stegosaurus, or even better, one of those little chicken-sized dinos?
Now there's going to be running and screaming, and it's all going to be a big huge mess.
Technoli
As much as I trust TV and the essentially random guesses made by people about something that has been dead for millions of years, I am not sure I want to stand still while being chased by a really big meat-eating dinosaur unless I am reeeaaally extra sure that it won't see me. On the upside I only have to run past the other people who have seen Jurassic Park and are standing still to test if this theory is true or not. If it runs past them I simply freeze, otherwise I can escape while it chomps on the first few unlucky souls to hold still.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
"Paleontologists forced to break the creature's massive thighbone to get it on a helicopter..."
Who was heading this team, Homer Simpson?
I can just see him now:
Homer: "Grrr..."
Lisa: "Dad, it's just too big to fit in there."
Homer: "Nonsense Lisa, daddy will just shove it in....Grrr....here it goes...." *snap* "...DOH!"
Sugapablo
First, I think we'll definately see cloned dinosaurs, mammoth, etc within out lives. What I think will surprise people will be the economic pusher for this.
Sure, researchers will pioneer the basic technology, but the people who do the large scale cloning won't be theme park owners, scientists, or preservationists.
They'll be food producers.
We're at the top of the foodchain, and foods like Fugu (deadly blowfish), sushi, and... well, many asian dishes, prove that we're running out of new stuff to eat. There are amazing strides being made by cooks, and there are only so many things people can try before they die of old age, but more and more people are getting adventuresome and want to eat things that nobody else has.
Enter: The brontoburger.
Who here hasn't salivated at the thought of carving into a big old dinosaur steak? Who here can forget the longing eyes they cast on Fred Flintstone's car as it tipped over under the weight of the massive dino-ribs he had just ordered?
Predictions:
1. Herbivores of various types will be bred in captivity for their meat and leather.
2. The rich will beat a path to their doorstep for the exclusivity of eating prehistoric food.
3. In an almost defiant gesture of the universe, the meat will undoubtedly taste like chicken. Dinosaurs are, after all, big ol' birds by most reckoning.
You may laugh now, but when you're cleaning the last bit of Tony Romas Olde Fashioned Allosaurus (like grandpa used to make 'em) Ribs, remember where you heard it first. Or second, or whenever this message drifted across your desk.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Whoever clones one first! I mean, who's gonna argue with a guy who has a friggin T-REX backing him up?
I thought that specifying that the bone was only 10,000 years old was bad, but when you talked about drinking White Zinfandel, your ignorance was confirmed... ;)
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
As much as I trust TV and the essentially random guesses made by people about something that has been dead for millions of years,
The detail about T-Rex's having the inability to see moving objects was thrown in by Michael Crichton to support his belief that scientists' filling in the ancient dinosaur DNA gaps with modern-day amphibian DNA would lead to various "features" being transposed across the species. Some amphibians of today truly cannot see inanimate objects.
This was a necessary plot point in the story... Jurassic Park was designed to continue only with Human support (no natural breeding), but "nature found a way" when the abilities of some amphibians to spontaneously change sexes was found in the JP dinosaurs.
To recap, it wasn't a random guess... Just a plot twist by a clever author. There's no evidence to suggest that ancient dinosaurs couldn't see inanimate objects. Predators like T-Rex's probably couldn't survive like that.
Birds too, I believe, cannot see things that do not move, and birds are believed to be whats left of dinosours as they evolved to today.
I've read that if it were possible for a human to control the natural eye jitteriness and just focus absolutely still, the image you see would fade away to nothing. The eye needs constant movement to be able to keep updating what you are seeing.
Morphing Software
Anybody got a handy chaos theorist? Anybody? Seriously, I need a chaos theorist, oily hair, glasses, fuzzy math skills, preferably debauched.
Alternatively do any of you know anything about UNIX systems?
No problem. When the T-Rexes start attacking, we can simply get our handy chaos theorist to upload a virus into the mother T-Rex and just pray that the T-Rex is Mac compatible.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
birds are believed to be whats left of dinosours as they evolved to today
It'd be amusing if the T-Rex had the parrot's vocal abilities to mimic human voices.
Of course, the only words they'd be exposed to and thus be able to mimic would be various versions of "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!" and "OH DEAR GOD NORRUUUURRRGGGGLLLE!!!!" and that would just scare other people off.
A sad life, the T-Rex's.
Sigh.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
God creates dinosaur.
God kills dinosaur.
God creates man.
Man kills God.
Man creates dinosaur.
Dinosaur eats man.
Woman inherits the earth.
Analogous to a geek that can turn on a chick
Ahh. This just proves that Evolution is BS, and that the earth is not hundreds of millions of years old. It is just a couple of thousand years old. Soft tissue could have lasted that long. In your FACE scientists. The dinosaurs were obviously killed in the crusades because they were dumb animals that didn't believe in Jesus. Duh.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Obseity in others is your best defense mechanism.
Certainly from predation, but speaking for fat people at McDonald's everywhere, I'd like to say that we're betting that the global food supply will run out before a T-Rex comes to life and chases us down.
We think that a better defense mechanism is taking two weeks longer to starve to death so we can eat you scrawny arrogant bastards as you drop like flies.
I don't care how thin you are, we'll still get a whole bunch of quarter pounders out of you...
The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
Lab analysis reveals that that the soft tissue was a Chicken McNugget dropped by a site worker eating his lunch.
Engineering is the art of compromise.