T. Rex Soft Tissue Found Preserved

Ok so now being 2011, this is kinda old news but i really thought it worth the mention on ATS in the Science forums.

It was just the other night i was reminiscing about Jurrasic Park and in my pre-teen years how great it was ( the movie ) and after watching it, I put my on a Google hunt and surprisingly i came up with some pretty credible results in regards to partial DNA and soft tissue that had been recovered from Dinosaur remains.

It amazes me that after 70+ Million years soft tissue could survive in any other state than frozen but here, read for yourselves;

NatGeo


T Rex Soft Tissue Found Preserved

Hillary Mayell
for National Geographic News

March 24, 2005
A Tyrannosaurus rex fossil has yielded what appear to be the only preserved soft tissues ever recovered from a dinosaur. Taken from a 70-million-year-old thighbone, the structures look like the blood vessels, cells, and proteins involved in bone formation.

Most fossils preserve an organism's hard tissues, such as shell or bone. Finding preserved soft tissue is unheard of in a dinosaur-age specimen.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d5b93a5f124e.jpg[/atsimg]

"To my knowledge, preservation to this extent—where you still have original flexibility and transparency—has not been noted in dinosaurs before, so we're pretty excited by the find," said Mary H. Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

The findings may provide new insights into dinosaur evolution, physiology, and biochemistry. They could also increase our understanding of extinct life and change how scientists think about the fossilization process.

"Finding these tissues in dinosaurs changes the way we think about fossilization, because our theories of how fossils are preserved don't allow for this [soft-tissue preservation]," Schweitzer said.

Full Article

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Also for some good measure i have added some additional news sources on the issue, also including one of the original reports by NBC news ( see below )

Courtesy MSNBC

Scientists recover T. rex soft tissue
70 million-year-old fossil yields preserved blood vessels


WASHINGTON — March 24, 2005 - For more than a century, the study of dinosaurs has been limited to fossilized bones. Now, researchers have recovered 70 million-year-old soft tissue, including what may be blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex.

If scientists can isolate proteins from the material, they may be able to learn new details of how dinosaurs lived, said lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University.

"We're doing a lot of stuff in the lab right now that looks promising," she said in a telephone interview. But, she said, she does not know yet if scientists will be able to isolate dinosaur DNA from the materials.

It was recovered dinosaur DNA — the blueprint for life — that was featured in the fictional recreation of the ancient animals in the book and film "Jurassic Park."

Full Article

So then perhaps we are one step closer to understanding the DNA / Genetics of the great race that lived here 70+ million years ago. Perhaps even one day if science allows we may even be able to clone a T-Rex or some other species as seen in the hit movie Jurrasic Park.



Although i will point out that just because preserved soft tissue was found, it does not mean that all the DNA was intact.

Normally over Millions of years or during fossilisation, the DNA within a bone or on tissue becomes minerals and loses it's celluar structure. Unlike the quick thinking of Jurrasic Park scientists, replacing Dinosaur DNA with frog DNA just wouldn't be enough. Perhaps some bird or Crocodile / Alligator DNA may be more compatible.

Although it is unlikely that a fully functioning and exact replica of any Dinosaur would be the outcome, unless of course scientist's were able to find the DNA of a Dinosaur that was 100% intact... although unlikely...

Has anyone else heard any other developments or and advances in the DNA sequencing??


Just to add;

The other alternative may be found here;

Source - Metro.co.uk

Dinosaur DNA rebuilt from ancient eggs -

Jurassic Park has just taken a giant T-Rex-sized step toward becoming reality after ancient DNA from long-extinct creatures was successfully extracted.


The DNA was taken from creatures such as the 10ft, half tonne elephant bird and successfully extracted from pieces of eggshell, trapped in fossils for thousands of years.


The new technique ‘has major implications in the fields of archaeology, palaeontology, conservation and forensics’, said Australian biologists. ‘We obtained DNA signatures from a variety of fossil eggshells, including the extinct moa, elephant birds and a 19,000-year-old emu,’ said Murdoch University’s Charlotte Oskam.


The researchers used lasers to highlight DNA ‘hotspots’ under a microscope, marking them with fluorescent green dye. ‘We showed that genetic material is preserved in the eggshell matrix and have successfully imaged the DNA via microscopy,’ they said.


Their study, to be published this week, is the first to discover the way to tease out genetic strands from eggshells.


Full Story

Who knows what may happen one day.... from Dolly the sheep to Rex the Dino

Thats interesting I was about to argue that they just meant fossilized soft tissue. That would be astounding enough. To find soft tissue preserved with "original flexibility and transparency" in a fossil....doesn't really fit with what I thought about fossils and fossilization.

reply to post by iforget


Yeah in the second news snippet ( NBC ) it actualy shows the tissue. Another part also reads that it was only due to the fossilised bone being brocken at that site that the diggers actually made the find.

In pretty much all other cases this has not happened, especially on purpose as pretty much all palaeontologist would rather keep their specimens in-tact and would not want to risk breaking them.

From what i could gather from the articles, this happened accidentally at this site which of course led to the discovery.
Perhaps this is a fluke, and one of those '' 1 in a million '' scenario's given that that climate, conditions and preservation were absoulutly perfect. Although it doesnt answer why the rest of the skeleton or fossils did nt contain similar tissue.

Perhaps they were not confident in breaking up other bones... ( only personal speculation )

I'm sure in past dig's bones have been accidentally broken but this seems to be the first time on record and only time since that soft tissue was found.

So........................cloning? Jurassic Park?

How better to study dinosaurs than raising one from a baby and turning it into a guard dog? I could definitely use one of those in my backyard!

reply to post by getreadyalready


aww so cute kinda like an adopt a dog program

Although in the end the raptors would probably outsmart us as hunters

Aw man, this is big.
Next, Reptilian Obama will be conquering the mid-east on T-Rex back!
.....or Jurassic Park, they would be fine....

Here is some further information on the later sequencing of the DNA and it's apparent similary to bird DNA, more specifically the Chicken??

Dinosaur Soft Tissue Sequenced; Similar to Chicken Proteins

Scott Norris
for National Geographic News
April 12, 2007

Now, for the first time, scientists have obtained partial protein sequences from the soft tissue remains.

"The sequences are clearly from T. rex," said John Asara of Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led one of the studies.

In addition, both studies found similarities between the dino sample and the bone collagen of chickens, providing molecular support for the hypothesis that modern birds are descended from dinosaurs.

Until now the dino-bird connection has been entirely based on physical similarities in fossils' body structures (related: "Earliest Bird Had Feet Like Dinosaur, Fossil Shows" [December 1, 2005]).

In a related study, a team led by Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University conducted tests that also revealed the presence of collagen in the T. rex remains.

In one experiment, antibodies that normally react in the presence of chicken collagen reacted strongly to the dinosaur protein, suggesting a similar molecular identity.

Full Article

Related Video -

reply to post by getreadyalready


IDK have you ever raised chickens? I like them but loyalty and affection aren't exactly their strong point. Yes I know there's pet birds just saying.

reply to post by iforget


Sad irony if true though...

They went from predators to our dinner thanks to evolution - gota love KFC

excellent!
get that into production
asap
japan needs you.
Go GO Godziililililla!

First thing that comes to my mind (after cloning) is that maybe dinosaurs aren't as old as we think they are.

The tales we pass down of dragons originated somewhere.

Just imagine we make 400 foot tall chickens genetically would solve world hunger

reply to post by againuntodust


It's funny you mention that.

The other night when i first came across the articles, there were also a couple from various sites using this find as an argument that Dinosaurs may have existed in much more recent times, although from what i could gather it was only speculation and there was no actual evidence to support it.

I'll post some snippets and links if you wanna have a look, although one of them mentions that this helps to suppport the possibility that Dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark although i dont know 100% either way but i just think in this case it was just luck and good conditions that led to the soft tissue being preserved.

Without absoulute evidence we can't know for sure though....


I have also been reading up on the Ica Stones ( Wiki ) from South America, if there is any truth behond those than perhaps some Dinosaurs did survive untill recently, although if they did they were probably hunted to exctinction.

Ica Stones


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ea15fe853847.jpg[/atsimg]
Source

The stones are composed of andesite and vary in size from pebbles to boulders. They are shallowly engraved through their surface patina with a variety of images, purportedly depicting a variety of phenomena:[1][2]

Incan or Aztec men riding and attacking dinosaurs
extinct animals
surgeons and astronomers performing advanced works
star and land maps
Contradicting extant knowledge of Peruvian prehistory, they are considered prime examples of out-of-place artifacts.[2]

en.wikipedia.org...

I am not totally convinced the Ica Stones are authentic but also not convinced 100% they are a hoax...


Anyways back to the reason for the post;

trexsoft.blogspot.com...

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

NEW SOFT TISSUE

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fc24864afca5.jpg[/atsimg]
creation.com...



By now we're all familiar with the fresh, unfossilized parts of dino bones that have been discovered recently, and highlighted on this blog.

Since the discovery, creationists have been wondering why the evolulus have been so hesitant to carbon date the bones.


They finally did, and we see just why they have been so afraid. The results came back that the dinos lived less than 100 years ago. Of course we dispute the accuracy of the evolutionary dating methods, but even this shows the dinos didn't live 70 million years ago.


So now they are saying the material was biofilm "slime". Of course that is obviously false from simply looking at the vessels and blood cells (with hemoglobin), coupled with the fact the alleged "slime" was spread uniformly, and not dripping toward the bottom as gravity would cause if it was slime.


Full Story / Blog

The above and below source are more religous concepts, so it's really upto your personal belief to how seriously you take the story. I personally dont quite agree with creationism etc but each to their own i guess.

Collagen filaments found in another T-rex bone.

Do we believe it is 65 million years old?

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[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a458f2130555.jpg[/atsimg]


In 1995, the museum in New Castle Wyoming gave Joe Taylor a small piece of bone from the hip of a T-rex. This T-rex was found in about 1916. Taylor sent a piece of the bone to California to be electron scanned by professor Mark Armitage at Azusa Pacific College.

Joe just wanted to see if it was bone or muscle. "I held part of the hip girdle of this rex in my lap to examine it. It appeared to have skin on the sacral vertebrae."

After scanning the bone fragment, Armitage reported to Taylor that it was in fact bone...but, there were collagen filaments inside it! He went on to say that, "It can't be but a few thousand years old."

Read More

reply to post by pez1975


Or we would become their food

No Thanks - although i wonder if Dinosaur meat would be similar to Crocodile?? - Taste's like chicken hehehe

Originally posted by Havick007
Ok so now being 2011, this is kinda old news but i really thought it worth the mention on ATS in the Science forums.

It was mentioned six years ago in the breaking news forum here:

SCI/TECH: Scientists Recover Soft Tissue from T. rex

And again in the science forum roughly five years ago here:
Jurassic Park a reality?

ATS allows one thread in breaking news and one in the appropriate forum, but that would make this thread a duplicate since there's already a thread on this topic in the science forum.

I imagine scientist are probably already in the process of trying to bring a dinosaur back to life. I'm sure they have the ability to do it. So would it be a good thing, if we could bring a T rex back to life.? Or was Jurassic park a warning about the consequences?

reply to post by Arbitrageur


yeah but hmm sometimes it's hard to revcive a 5 year old thread, especially being something so big in science and something alot but not all people hadnt heard of yet.

I can't beleive i missed that story when it actually happened.

Also to be honest there wasnt a whole of effort put into those threads ( OP ).... A thread should be about quality sources, a variety of sources and interactive to an extent, links, images and media etc.

It often amazes me the kudos someone will get for a 5 minutes, 1 paragraph thread with some image links..

I would be annoyed to say the least if mine was removed becuase of a 5 minute (if that ) post made 5 years ago.

The same thing happens in more recent topics, you can post a really good, in-depth and informative thread with lots of information, media, links and content but if someone else beats you by even 10 minutes it is first come best dressed.

Thta person may have only posted a small snippet with barley any information but becuase it was first it will win, it is fair enough to extent but i have been using ATS long enough to know it's not that hard to put a decent OP together. In reality i am still faily new to many other members..... It's all about taking pride in your reports and stories and making it stand out and be interesting for the reader and other contributors...

That's my opinion and sorry it was kind of a rant...oooops.

Sometimes news needs to be reposted in a newer and better format with some upto date follow up stories.

Welcome to Jurassic Park.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


Even though they have found soft tissue and that is amazing, it does not mean the DNA would be intact, not 100% anyways.

In Jurrasic Park they used Frog DNA to make up the missing DNA, which i think is what led to the Animals being able to bread in sequals etc. Anyways back to reality

Frog DNA wouldn't cut it, think about this, what happened when we mix the DNA of 2 species in many cases?

You get a hybrid creature with features of both species depending on specific genes used. Even if that did work, why Frogs?

Wouldnt an Aliigator or perhaps a Crocodile be more similar, and as i wrote above perhaps some bird DNA. Look i dont know for sure, i am not a genetisist.

I think we are a long way off Jurrasic Park, although it would be cool. Morality?? hmmm no comment

yeah, just big chickens.

really, 40ft chickens with 7in teeth. no prob.

lol, they like shiny objects like cd's flashing in the sun.

quite smart too, play the piano and predict the lotto.

dogs won't get along with them tho.