10.03
It appears that fossilization is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Evidently, a new Tyrrannosaurus find in Montana was still icky on the inside. Now, I’m no paleo-pathologist, but common sense tells me that 70 million years in the ground is plenty of time to suck the icky out of anything that exists. Here is the money passage:
“…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.”
–Science Now(2006)
So they are probably ready to re-think the dinosaur timescale, right? Nope:
“Does this discovery of soft dinosaur tissue mean that scientists will soon be able to clone a Tyrannosaurus rex? Probably not – most scientists believe that DNA cannot survive for 70 million years. Then again, before this discovery, most scientists believed that soft tissue could not survive for 70 million years either.”
–Science Now(2006)
I for one hope that they do figure out a way to clone T-Rex. A T-Rex New York strip or some T-Rex kabobs for gameday would rock.
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