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

Originally posted by jlc163
Scientists have told us for GENERATIONS that something that old WILL NOT have any "living tissue".

The tissue is not alive.

Anyway, it means one of several things:
1. Either this is not T-Rex DNA, or the T-Rex in question is MUCH younger than the timescale given, period.

Infact, spectacular as this find is, its not at all impossible or unthinkable.

The chances of rotting flesh being uncorruptible for that long more than borders on a miracle[/'quote]
Sicne we're not talking about rotting flesh that was miraculously uncorrupted, then thats not really relevant.

Ok, I am going to post that post here, rather than link to it in ignorance denied, since its not in the reference section there.

Dr. Schweitzer announced that she was able to recover actual remains of soft tissue from fossilized Tyrannosaur bone marrow cavities. The original announcement, or at least the first that I heard, was at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontolgy. Previously, she had also been able to recover dinosaur blood proteins from fossilized bone. Please take note, she did not find blood cells or tissues in these fossils as was erroneously reported in anti-evolutionary circles. Other researchers have been able to find various other bio-molecules, mostly proteins, in fossilized bones for a short time now.

Here I will present a few eclectic resources related to these exciting topics.

Here is the citation for the Schweizter soft-tissue article. If Someone has acess to the Science archives perhaps they can post it.

Schweitzer M. H., Wittmeyer J. L., Horner J. R. & Toporski J. K. et al. Science,307. 1952 - 1955 (2005).

Here is a Nature news article about the Schweizter Soft-Tissue discovery
Flexible fossil shows tyrannosaur's softer side
doi:10.1038/news050321-13

Here is a Talk Origins FAQ on Dino-blood and the Young Earth.

All the analysis published in the science literature by Mary H. Schweitzer and her colleagues through 1997 demonstrate that they have found a very well preserved bone that had little or no water penetration into the core area from where they drew their biomolecule samples. Schweitzer has told me that she was very surprised that the creationists would latch on to her work like this, as hers is not the oldest reported biomolecule data. In fact, there were prior publications of DNA extracted from samples twice as old as her T. rex sample (for example Polinar et al. 1994). There were also prior reports of immunological responses from biomolecules extracted from dinosaur bone, for example Muyzer et al. 1992.

Here is a FAQ written by the same authoer on the pressence of a bone protein in fossil samples.

There is actually little detailed information provided about the burial conditions of the samples analyzed by Muyzer et al (1992), and as Baumgardner (2001) can offer no additional data or references, his elaboration "in the geological settings in which they were found." is the purest fabrication. Baumgardner's (1995B) claim that "protein (referring to osteocalcin) in dinosaur bone buried in strongly leaching conditions in porous rock" had been recovered is dishonest. The only samples that received any detailed stratigraphic discussion in the original publication were two approximately contemporaneous fossils from the Upper Cretaceous, designated F38, and F39. These data indicated that the slightly younger bone (2.25 Ma younger) experienced greater absolute temperatures and higher matrix permeability to water. Significantly, this younger bone showed no preservation of osteocalcin at all. This is a direct contradiction of Baumgardner’s report of this research; the actual relationship is the more "leaching," the less protein preservation.

external image
via talk origins



An article on Heme compounds in dinosaur trabecular bone.

An casual interview from Nature with Dr. Schweitzer.

Here is an older article on bone proteins from fossils, called The survival of organic matter in bone: a review

Here is an article that asks the question, How reliable are immunological tools for the detection of ancient proteins in fossil bones?

Here is an article about much younger bones and different organic material; Immunospecificity of albumin detected in 1.6 million-year-old fossils from Venta Micena in Orce, Granada, Spain

Here are some other references that are relevant.

Collins, M.J., Child, A.M., van Duin, A.T.C. & Vermeer, C. 1998 "Ancient osteocalcin; the most stable bone protein?" Ancient Biomolecules. 2: 223-238.

Collins, M. J., et al 1999 Is osteocalcin stabilised in ancience bones by absporption to bioapatite?" Ancient Biomolecules 2(2): 223-233.

Collins, M.J., Gernaey, A.M., Nielsen-Marsh, C.M., Vermeer, C., Westbroek, P. 2000 "Osteocalcin in fossil bones: evidence of very slow rates of decomposition from laboratory studies." Geology, 28: 1139 - 1142.

Collins, M. J., C. Nielseen-Marsh, J. Hiller, C. I. Smith and J. P. Roberts 2002 " The Survival of Organic Matter in Bone: A Review" Archeaometry 44, 3: 383-394

Polinar, G. O., Poinar, H. N., and Cano, R. J. 1994 DNA from Amber Inclusions, in B. Herrman and S. Hummmel (ed.s), Ancient DNA. Recovery and Analysis of Genetic Material from Paleontological, Archaeological, Museum, Medical and Forensic Specimens, New York: Springer-Verlag, pp92-103.
Schweitzer, M.H., Johnson, C., Zocco, T.G., Horner, J.H., Starkey, J.R., 1997C Preservation of biomolecules in cancellous bone of Tyrannosaurus rex, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Volume 17, No. 2, June 19. 349-359

Schweitzer, Mary Higby, John R. Horner 1999 Intrasvascular microstructures in trabecular bone tissues of Tyrannosaurus rex, Annales de Paléontologie Volume 85, Issue 3, July-September , pg.179-192.

Originally posted by jlc163
*snort*
Scientists have told us for GENERATIONS that something that old WILL NOT have any "living tissue". Go look at the transitory models for how long it takes for things to get fossilized by their time scale.
Anyway, it means one of several things:
1. Either this is not T-Rex DNA, or the T-Rex in question is MUCH younger than the timescale given, period. The chances of rotting flesh being uncorruptible for that long more than borders on a miracle...

There is no "living tissue" or "rotting flesh," think fossilized soft tissue. They are currently trying to extract proteins and eventually DNA. Nobody knows if it can be done, yet.

...and there's enough of those with the big bang. (reference to big bang being a miracle made by a prominant evolitionist in an article, not my words.)

Who said anything about the big bang? I don't care what a nameless prominant evolitionist says anyway.

2. You just posted something for Creationists to use in their never ending line of evidence against Evil-ootion. Wait until someone figures out a probability chart.

I did? How in hell can this be used to refute evolution? This does NOT refute radiometric dating in any way. Besides, I don't give a F*** what creationists do with it. They can do whatever they want. Probability chart? What's that? Would it be based on finding rotting T. rex flesh?

Read the article and some of the great links posted by Nygdan and other members. *snort*

Man, there's a lot of posters tapping out the yea and yack today no? What with all the snorting going on!

.
If the cells are red-blood cells they won't have any nucleous or DNA. Maybe some mitocondrial DNA.

I'm not getting excited about sequencing T-Rex, yet.

Structural proteins don't have any DNA do they? They are basically inert fibers i think.

I have never heard of any method of taking an animal's protein and extrapolating the DNA sequence from it.

It's wildly unexpected if they come up with something. Very cool, but i won't be holding my breath.

I am more inclined to think they will find living microbes on Mars then sequence this T-Rex.
.

I agree with you, slank. I'm waiting to see what they can pull from the tissue (and admittedly skeptical). But, there is the chance. I think you're right in that they cannot get any DNA out of protein molecules, but, still, if they can reconstruct the proteins...just, WOW! I could be interpreting this whole thing wrong, here's my take on it: they have found fossilized soft tissue. Organic material that has been mineralized. NOT the actual tissues, but a chemical "photograph" of them, if you will. To me, the question is how detailed can these "photos" get. Can they reproduce protein and DNA sequences?

Originally posted by slank
.
If the cells are red-blood cells they won't have any nucleous or DNA. Maybe some mitocondrial DNA.

I think that they are thinking its a conglomeration of all the soft tissues that can be found in long bone marrow, so that'd include stuff besides RBCs.

Structural proteins don't have any DNA do they?

No, they don't/

They are basically inert fibers i think.

They have functions, They're not inert.

I have never heard of any method of taking an animal's protein and extrapolating the DNA sequence from it.

I don't see why you couldn't work backwards, but I've never heard of people doing it to determin genetic sequence.

I am more inclined to think they will find living microbes on Mars then sequence this T-Rex.

Thats kind of like comparing apples to oranges tho.

poonchang
but, still, if they can reconstruct the proteins...just, WOW!

It would be very interesting to do comparative work on bird, croc, and tyrannosuar proteins.

I could be interpreting this whole thing wrong, here's my take on it: they have found fossilized soft tissue. Organic material that has been mineralized. NOT the actual tissues, but a chemical "photograph" of them, if you will

Thats not what I understand it to be. She had the long bones. They're more or less fossilized, permineralized and such. She treated them with chemicals to get ride of the mineral materials. She was left with a goop that had some real structure to it and that was composed of biological molecules. So what she has is un-fossilized soft tissues.
Its really awesome.

While at first this may seem extraordinary preservation, Mary first uncovered this by seeing an unusual coloration on a section
of tyrannosaur bone, which she then analyzed more closely, resulting in the current study. In the paper, she notes how she looked at other fossils,
including the Wankel rex and "Sue," and found the tissues present there as well, except the resolution of detail was more profound and ubiquitous in Sue and the first specimen she tested, than in the Wankel rex. This means that the tissues may be more prevalent than realized because no one has explicitly tested for them. I beleive she has also looked at a hadrosdaur fossil and found similar traces, so the material preservation, while known currently from latest Maastrichtian time in the Hell Creek Formation, is not confined to either *Tyrannosaurus rex* or even theropods.

They also noted that even bone shards can yeild similar results.

another observer notes

There are common proteins produced by many mechanisms and there are those more rarely expressed by unique metabolic
processes. Based on antibody reaction to protein presence, one can
infer (based on what occurs of course) what processes were involved in
the production of the particular protein. Metabolic pathways often
produce specific proteins. (I suspect that even most of these
proteins will be fragmentary as well.) Presence or absence of a
particular molecule may denote these processes and thusly an analogue can be made to modern equivalent metabolic activity.

Even some old viruses, bacteria and fungi might reanimate.

So the panic mongers can make of that what they will.

On creationist speculations

I also don't think that this will give any fuel to those literal folks
that grasp at straws to promote recent burial. There is nothing
contradictory to conventional geologic process here. Just a sealed time
capsule from the distant past. Without oxygen and bacterial action,
there is nothing to break down the tissues period. Presumably the
sealed bone was biologically sterile (except for virus' possibly) upon
burial. My only problem with the perfect sealed container idea is that
blood supply vessels got into the bone marrow through holes in the bone
which must have been sealed immediately by euxinic mud or similar
biologically sterile, non oxygen permeable muck.

On other soft tissues from fossils (more recent tho)

Speaking of which, I remember reading a few years
back in a magazine
(Discover?) that isotopes in fossil ground sloth
bones suggested they had a
carnivorous diet.

So everyone can take that for what its worth.