Ancient Fossilized Bone Marrow Found

anthemaniac writes "Last year scientists recovered soft tissue from a T. rex. Now LiveScience is reporting that researchers have found fossilized bone marrow, the first discovery this this type of soft tissue, in frog and salamander fossils dating back 10 million years. Since the bone marrow was discovered 'in an environment vastly different form the one in which the T. rex soft tissue was found,' scientists now hope they'll find soft tissue in other environments and maybe from ancient mammals."

Comments

Missing links

[karvind]

I wonder if they can sequence the protein segments too (I hope there are some) and we should be able to find more of the links with birds. And most importantly can they isolate DNAs as well ? It has been a while (yeah long time).

Cool...

[Savage-Rabbit]

... scientists now hope they'll find soft tissue in other environments and maybe from ancient mammals."

Like archaic humans? Especially Neanderthals. I for one am looking forward to observing the ensuing shitstorm^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H dispassionate, civilized debate between members of the scientific community.

Any palentologists in the house?

[Black Parrot]

All we ever seem to see about the soft tissue claim is references back to the original press release. What claims have been published in the peer reviewed literature, and how have those claims been received?

As I understand it, what actually happened is that there was some "stuff" in the holes where blood vessels formerly flowed through the leg bones, and it came out when a solvent was applied. Then came the press release; I haven't seen any stories about the eventual analysis of the material, and the lengthening silence makes me wonder whether the press release was a jumped conclusion.