T.Rex tissue found in Femur

This was on the news a while ago. Thought I would post it up here, coud this tissue still be good enough to contain DNA in it? Scientists were discussing how they may clone a T.Rex...erm..I don't think that would a good idea..look at the movie Lost World, would you want a T.rex roaming around the neighborhood? LOL.

Here is the story:

www.washingtonpost.com...

I found some more info on the "B. Rex" discovery at MSU's website:

www.montana.edu...

Eastern Montana's B. rex now yields female bone tissue

The Tyrannosaurus rex known as B. rex has now yielded bone tissue that is common in female birds, said Mary Higby Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. A former graduate student at Montana State University, she is at MSU for the summer.


The discovery not only means that B. rex was female, but it signifies the end of a scientific treasure hunt, according to Schweitzer who announced her discovery in the June 3 issue of the journal Science.

Researchers have long predicted they would find medullary tissue in dinosaurs, but they hadn't found it until it appeared in the hind thigh bones of B. rex, Schweitzer said. Scientists expected to find the tissue in dinosaurs because other evidence linking birds and dinosaurs is so robust and all female birds have medullary tissue.

Also this story on newsscientist.com suggesting that it may be possible to get biological/chemical info from fossils:

www.newscientist.com...

Protein sequencing

Other researchers have previously recovered traces of protein from dinosaur bones, and indeed just two weeks ago Schweitzer reported traces of protein in 70 million year old dinosaur eggs.

"[The T. rex paper] suggests that biological and biochemical information might be recoverable from a wide range of fossil material," says Angela Milner of the Natural History Museum, in London, UK, who has detected proteins in Iguanadon bone. "There certainly seem to be blood vessels," she told New Scientist.
The next step will be to isolate proteins and try to sequence them. Comparing protein sequences could help trace relationships with other prehistoric beasts and with animals alive today. Schweitzer decline to discuss DNA because she does not work with it, but DNA is far less stable than proteins so is usually broken into fragments, even in tissue that has been frozen since the ice age.

Journal reference: Science (vol 307, p 1952)

I doubt they'll be able to pull off a Jurassic Park thing but the information would be invaluable to scientists, i would think... I couldn't find any new information on this so i assume they're not done studing the samples yet. Nygdan would probably know if there's anything new on this... Nygdan?

I noticed a 'Is Jurassic Park possible' thread on the boards; haven't checked it out yet. Might be worth a look... i'll go grab the link and edit it in.

(edit)Link to sci/tech thread on Jurassic park: www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 27-2-2006 by Rren]

Oo wow! Excellent info, thanks a lot friend Yeah...i highly doubt that too, just because #1..it would be hard, nd #2 it's not safe, lol.

Originally posted by Rren
I found some more info on the "B. Rex" discovery at MSU's website:

The Tyrannosaurus rex known as B. rex has now yielded bone tissue that is common in female birds

I knew it! I knew it!

I've always suspected dinosaurs taste like chicken

Kentucky Fried Dinosaur anyone?

Kentucky Fried Dinosaur anyone?

LOL, nice post. I like your cat avitar too, it's Kyute!!!

Originally posted by whitelightwolf
, coud this tissue still be good enough to contain DNA in it? Scientists were

There might be some DNA but nothing close to what we can work with for cloning using current technology. The DNA would have been degraded a great deal and be all but useless for cloning.

We can even get good enough DNA from a preserved baby thylacine in alchol. The DNA has already degraded far too much to even construct an DNA library of the Tasmanian Tiger with current tech.

Who know what will be possible in the future as the technology advances. I would be pretty cool to see a living T-rex someday, I would pay a pretty penny to go to a zoo with one of those.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX

Originally posted by whitelightwolf
, coud this tissue still be good enough to contain DNA in it? Scientists were

There might be some DNA but nothing close to what we can work with for cloning using current technology. The DNA would have been degraded a great deal and be all but useless for cloning.

We can even get good enough DNA from a preserved baby thylacine in alchol. The DNA has already degraded far too much to even construct an DNA library of the Tasmanian Tiger with current tech.

Who know what will be possible in the future as the technology advances. I would be pretty cool to see a living T-rex someday, I would pay a pretty penny to go to a zoo with one of those.

Yes and I have to say that I do agree with you wholly. I have read and heard about the baby tasmanian Tiger in the jar. I have also done my own research on that animal. Loved it so much I made my own character out of the creature. Anyways, yes I too, would pay to see a live T.Rex. Maybe someday they will succeed by any means, however, we haven't seen results for the wholly mammoth test either. But all we do is wait.