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Signs of Ancient Cells and Proteins Found In Dinosaur Fossils

Posted by Soulskill on from the life-will-find-a-way dept.

sciencehabit writes: The cupboards of the Natural History Museum in London hold spectacular dinosaur fossils, from 15-centimeter, serrated Tyrannosaurus rex teeth to a 4-meter-long hadrosaur tail. Now, researchers are reporting another spectacular find, buried in eight nondescript fossils from the same collection: what appear to be ancient red blood cells and fibers of ancient protein. Using new methods to peer deep inside fossils, the study in this week's issue of Nature Communications backs up previous, controversial reports of such structures in dinosaur bones. It also suggests that soft tissue preservation may be more common than anyone had guessed.

51 comments

  1. Jurassic Park by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Life, uh... finds a way. I for one welcome our new dinosaur overlords.

  2. Snakes taste like chickens by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 1

    I wonder what Dinosaur meat taste like ...
     
    Who knows? The cloned dino might become our next meal?

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      Could be. Just make sure you buy a gun to take care of the business.

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

      In all seriousness, I wonder if it may some day be possible to piece together the few remaining codons (usually remaining in sequences of a hundred or less) using some kind of avian as a broader template without using it to fill in any gaps. Definitely don't use frog DNA to fill in the gaps, because as a 90's documentary has shown us, the "dinosaurs" end up looking more like reptiles than dinosaurs, that and the 100% female population may breed out of control and take over the island you're experimenting on.

      Would be an ungodly massive undertaking if so, and I doubt our existing best possible microscopy is up for the task (I think using PCR would fudge some of the sequences.)

    2. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      Yaba daba doo!

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    3. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by AJWM · · Score: 3, Funny

      Considering that birds are considered avian dinosaurs (the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct), it's a good bet that they (dinos) do taste like chicken.

      But you're going to need two strong arms to lift that drumstick!

      --
      -- Alastair
    4. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by captainpanic · · Score: 2

      In prehistoric Russia, drumsticks eat you!

    5. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In prehistoric Russia, drumsticks ATE you!

      ftfy!

    6. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 1

      Wilma!

    7. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

      On the other hand, not even all modern birds in the same family taste the same (for example, chicken vs. turkey). BTW, does anyone else find it kind of odd that it just worked out such that one family (Phasianidae) contains almost all of the commonly eaten birds (chicken, turkey, pheasant, quail, grouse, ptarmigan, peafowl, etc) except for the waterfowl, their less commonly hunted but still regionally popular relatives are in the same order (Galliformes), and waterfowl - the remainder of the commonly eaten birds - make up the other half of the same superorder (Galloanserae)? That superorder only contains 440 of the world's ~17000 living bird species. Apparently evolution did something along that line that humans decided equals "tasty, convenient, and morally acceptable". And apparently it did that all the way back in the cretaceous, because this superorder has been distinct for that long - the "food birds" / "fowl" branched off from the other avian dinosaurs while there were still tyrannosaurs and velociraptors roaming about.

      BTW, alligators/crocodiles just barely miss out on being called dinosaurs in most definitions, and any definition that would lump pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, etc in with dinosaurs would also lump in alligators / crocodiles. They're birds' closest living relatives, both descended from the archosaurs.

      --
      "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
    8. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      But you're going to need two strong arms to lift that drumstick!

      And now the math/science/food geek in me wants to calculate just how many humans an Apatosaurus would feed.

      Given that 1 pound of turkey is considered a serving (accounting for bone weight) and assuming a similar bone-meat ratio in Apatosaurus (a big assumption, I know but this is a quick calculation), a 16.4 metric ton (36,155.8 pounds) Apatosaurus would feed over 36,000 people. Eighteen thousand if everyone had seconds.

      Who wants to cure world hunger by cloning dinosaurs?

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    9. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder what Dinosaur meat taste like ...

      That's a strange thing to wonder about. Frankly, I didn't even know they had dicks.

    10. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by Allasard · · Score: 1
      That is interesting, and never thought about that before.

      Seeing as that order are all "ground-eating" birds, the reason is probably mostly based on: "Bird that doesn't fly too high when I try to catch it."

    11. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by parkinglot777 · · Score: 1

      I wonder what Dinosaur meat taste like ... Who knows? The cloned dino might become our next meal?

      Or it could be opposite. If we clone them, we would be their meal instead?

    12. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All these birds a relatively large (more meat), can survive in a range of climates and can be domesticated to some extent.

    13. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I suspect size is also a factor. A small bird like a sparrow/pigeon/chickadee/crow isn't as practical a meal as a chicken, tho people do eat some small birds like quail, they are not anywhere near as common a meal.

      Tho that doesn't really explain why we don't commonly eat large birds like ostrich, Emu, seagull, pelicans, and Birds of prey (I realize it's considered not good to eat predators, but most birds are omnivorous really)

    14. Re:Snakes taste like chickens by Rei · · Score: 1

      They also have rather high egg laying capacity compared to most birds - usually half a dozen to over dozen eggs in a clutch.

      --
      "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
  3. Maybe we can clone us some dinosaurs by penguinoid · · Score: 4, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our giant drumstick-bearing, chicken-flavored overlords.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    1. Re:Maybe we can clone us some dinosaurs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I for one welcome this thinly veiled viral marketing scheme for Jurassic World, which is about to hit theaters this weekend.
      (Though I don't plan to watch the movie until it's available in a red envelope.)

    2. Re:Maybe we can clone us some dinosaurs by suso · · Score: 1

      Exactly. If there wasn't a mega-summer blockbuster in the queue for release, this wouldn't be news.

  4. DNA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I heard about 15 years ago that the middle of the thickest fossil/bone of one of the larger dinos still had some dino DNA.

    1. Re:DNA? by binarylarry · · Score: 3, Funny

      I totally read that in a southern US accent.

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    2. Re:DNA? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      You want potatoes or cheese grits with that?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:DNA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a JP reference.

    4. Re:DNA? by Rei · · Score: 1

      No. Finding actual DNA would be a real shock, as it's an unstable molecule. Even finding RNA would be quite a shock. It's amazing that we can even get some sort of "proteins" (maybe). Still, if this can be replicated, that's a great start toward understanding what would be in their DNA. We already have the basic framework (modern birds), and we can roll back many of the changes that have occurred in birds by looking at what they have in common versus what deviated in different lineages, plus potentially some more information from other living relatives like crocodilians. But we can't figure out everything that way. We can in many regards guess by means of learning what different genes do and reactivating atavisms or inserting genes that cause the morphological differences in dinosaur species. But finding actual proteins would help take the guesswork out.

      It's unlikely, baring discovering some sort of amazing and totally unexpected type of preservation, to ever be able to bring dinosaurs back all the way. But, with a lot of time and research, we may be able to get pretty close.

      --
      "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
    5. Re:DNA? by BCGlorfindel · · Score: 1

      Mary Schweitzer's been working on this since 1993 when she found soft-tissue in a fossil and nobody would believe that's what she'd found. Her latest paper is getting fragments of the protein chains from a T-Rex. Back in 1993 she was told that any soft tissue at all was entirely and completely impossible. Don't know how realistic it is, but I really want to believe some manner of circumstances allow T-Rex clones in the future.

    6. Re:DNA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How did yo' all knows ah was fum th' south?

  5. Come on baby, you know you want it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Velociraptors!

  6. Cue creationists by 7-Vodka · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Cue young earth creationists claiming this dinosaur was intelligently designed 5000 years ago.

    Sigh.

    --

    Liberty.

    1. Re:Cue creationists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you saying the Bible lies? Of course it was intelligently designed you insensitive clod!

    2. Re:Cue creationists by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Cue young earth creationists claiming this dinosaur was intelligently designed 5000 years ago.

      Sigh.

      Some of them already claim that soft tissue discoveries proved that dinosaurs were recent. IIRC it was listed in the "creationist rigs search results" article a week or two ago.

      Of course, there's a pending religious schism between those who claim all the dinos died in the flood, those who claim that they were saved by Noah and died later, and those who say they never existed at all (the fossils being planted by God to make sure no eviloutionists believe the bible).

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    3. Re:Cue creationists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course just saying they are a bunch of idiots does not disprove their point. Some creationists are leading scientists and know their stuff. What is needed is to show that their reasoning is wrong.

    4. Re:Cue creationists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Four posts against creationist posts, 0 creationist posts. Two joke threads. No comments on the science.

      Excellent

    5. Re:Cue creationists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are literally tons of fossils that show their reasoning is wrong, the problem with it is any reason can be waved away with 'God made it like that' or 'the devil did it'. When people have believe a magic entity with omnipotent powers did something, no amount of reason can over come the 'God is all powerful and made it that way' argument.

    6. Re:Cue creationists by BevanFindlay · · Score: 2

      Or, that there is an entirely different option: we've been getting Genesis wrong due to approaching it with the wrong worldview (The Lost World of Genesis One, John H Walton). I don't hear this being talked about much, even though it really does seem to be a good way to link "believing the Bible" and accepting science (i.e. it makes most of the points of contention disappear), and I think being able to find some common ground between the two sides of the debate would be good. I am a little concerned though that my hope of "let's consider all ideas, even if they disagree with what we previously thought" is too courageous a position to expect, so this very thoughtful book might get missed by those who most need to read it (defenders of Creationism)...

    7. Re: Cue creationists by firewrought · · Score: 2

      Sure dinos were intelligently designed... by an agentless, iterative, massively parallel, DNA-based world-spanning supercomputer. Just because an intelligent system is smart doesn't mean it has intentions, goals, or a human-like "self".

      --
      -1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
    8. Re:Cue creationists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NO creationist is a "leading scientist" that "knows their stuff" in the field of paleontology. What you have are wackjobs with degrees in other fields (religious studies, underwater basket weaving), who spout off about a subject they are not experts in. IDIOTS, like you, then spout off saying, "see, here is a scientist that disagrees!"

      .

    9. Re:Cue creationists by captainpanic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Cue young earth creationists claiming this dinosaur was intelligently designed 5000 years ago.

      Why do you even bring it up? You honor the creationists too much by acknowledging their existance, and you help their cause by simplifying and slightly misinterpreting their (enormously flawed) arguments, thereby giving them the chance to come back with a "correction" of your post, while completely ignoring science (again).

    10. Re:Cue creationists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cue young earth creationists claiming this dinosaur was intelligently designed 5000 years ago.

      Sigh.

      Funny, no one mentioned that until you did... "Cue bigoted leftist hipster making snarky anti-religion post on slashdot. Sigh."

    11. Re:Cue creationists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like the author of a book called something like "Creatures Defying Evolution" ? an ex-dentist turned a book author who tried to be a biologist or palaeontologist?

    12. Re:Cue creationists by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

      I sometimes wish my honesty and self-respect were low enough to let me cash in by publishing any kind of drek people are dying to hear.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    13. Re:Cue creationists by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      Cue young earth creationists claiming this dinosaur was intelligently designed 5000 years ago.

      Sigh.

      Some of them already claim that soft tissue discoveries proved that dinosaurs were recent. IIRC it was listed in the "creationist rigs search results" article a week or two ago.

      Of course, there's a pending religious schism between those who claim all the dinos died in the flood, those who claim that they were saved by Noah and died later, and those who say they never existed at all (the fossils being planted by God to make sure no eviloutionists believe the bible).

      You forget the existing religious schism which pits creationists vs those who accept evolution. This is something that completely baffles me, creationism, since I came to the US 26 years ago.

      Creationism is hardly a form of thought in the rest of Christendom, but it is so dominant in the US. How can this country who has achieved so much have so many troglodyte-thinking people?

      My grandma back in my country, who has never left her little mountain town and who only completed elementary education accepts evolution (scientists say so, I don't understand it, but they do, because they studied a lot, so it must be true, that is what she says.)

      The level of willful stupidity in this country boggles the mind.

    14. Re:Cue creationists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like Richard Dawkins and Hitchens?

  7. Ha! Stupid biologists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "We sampled an N of 1 old fossil and found no DNA, therefore Dino DNA preservation is impossible." That was one study, another was "We sampled DNA under an N of 1 set of environmental conditions, and by sampled I mean we simulated and extrapolated DNA's breakdown over the course of decades because we couldn't actually be bothered to wait that long. Thus Jurassic Park is impossible." That was another study.

    Why not call a chemist when a chemist is actually needed?

  8. An Ozark Haykoo by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

    Palest white circle.
    The faintest dab of yellow.
    Ain't no such thing as too many grits.
     

  9. Satan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    has placed those fossils do deceive you.

  10. And by some amazing coincidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    New Jurassic Park film coming to a cinema near you!

  11. 1993 called by BCGlorfindel · · Score: 2

    They want their headline back. Mary Schweitzer already made the same discovery in 1993, and she's been fighting for more than 2 decades to get her findings past the "consensus" that such long preservation was impossible. It seemed like she had gotten her findings verified again by 2000 but I guess it's still only now becoming generally accepted. Really unfortunate it can still take that long for a major discovery to become accepted.

    1. Re:1993 called by Biosci777 · · Score: 1
      I'm glad someone mentioned Dr. Shweitzer's work, since, as you point out, this is only confirmation of old news. The reason "it can still take that long for a major discovery to become accepted" is that human nature has not changed in the last several thousand years: we have our treasured beliefs, and we don't like to see them challenged, ESPECIALLY when changing them could render our past work pointless or even wrong.

      The controversy is usually framed as Creation vs Evolution, but really it's Biochemistry vs Evolutionary Biology.

    2. Re:1993 called by suso · · Score: 1

      They want their headline back. Mary Schweitzer already made the same discovery in 1993, and she's been fighting for more than 2 decades to get her findings past the "consensus" that such long preservation was impossible. It seemed like she had gotten her findings verified again by 2000 but I guess it's still only now becoming generally accepted. Really unfortunate it can still take that long for a major discovery to become accepted.

      The only reason this is news now is because of the Jurassic World release. Note that 1993 was when Jurassic Park was released.

    3. Re:1993 called by jfengel · · Score: 1

      And in fact the Science article mentions that Schweitzer is skeptical of the new results. She's the expert in all the ways in which the conclusions could be wrong, since she's got one of those extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary proofs. She's sincere and not stupid, but the things that she's trying to detect are extremely tiny and subject to a lot of contamination, and she's well aware that it could be wrong.

      This is a preliminary result and will require a lot of different approaches to give the kind of confirmation that will lend it credence. It would be great, but extremely puzzling, if it's true. (It doesn't help that it gives the creationists a chance to inject more of their idiocy into the conversation.)

  12. Even better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If, when raising the dinosaur, you feed it with hungry peasants, it would help cure world hunger even faster!