Biggest find in the history of paleontology

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2005-03-24 02:33pm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7285683/

I, for one, welcome our dinosaur overlords

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-03-24 02:37pm

let the cloning begin!

Firefox · Post by **Firefox** » 2005-03-24 02:37pm

I... I'm at a loss for words.

Now for Sir Attenborough to open a theme park....

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2005-03-24 02:39pm

I first thought that it just HAD to be a joke.

But it looks genuine.

It's a hideously far stretch, but I do hope some DNA has survived. If it has, they MUST CLONE IT I SAY!!!!

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2005-03-24 02:40pm

mommy, can I have a pet trex? we can get mamoths from the zoo for it to eat.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2005-03-24 02:42pm

Holy shit.

That's all I can say. Just...holy shit. This is going to blow dinosaur paleontology wide open.

Firefox · Post by **Firefox** » 2005-03-24 02:43pm

Indeed, no word if any DNA has survived. I wonder if they've tried to culture the damned things. If not, post haste!

Apparently this was found after cracking open one of the femurs. They should start doing similar studies of other fossilized remains.

This is fucking awesome.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2005-03-24 02:47pm

My God... the wealth of information we will be able to gain from this.

Styphon · Post by **Styphon** » 2005-03-24 02:52pm

Firefox wrote:Indeed, no word if any DNA has survived. I wonder if they've tried to culture the damned things. If not, post haste!

Apparently this was found after cracking open one of the femurs. They should start doing similar studies of other fossilized remains.

This is fucking awesome.

I take it you missed this:

The finding certainly shows fossilization does not proceed as science had assumed, Schweitzer said. Since the discovery, she has found similar samples of soft tissue in two other Tyrannosaur fossils and a hadrosaur.

Firefox · Post by **Firefox** » 2005-03-24 02:53pm

Regardless, they still need to expand the search.

Executor32 · Post by **Executor32** » 2005-03-24 03:10pm

Kickass!

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-03-24 03:22pm

Whoa...holy shit. That's pretty badass.

But how realistic would 'cloning' a dinosaur from tissue cells alone be? Don't you need something more than just tissue cells? Like, reproductive tissue of some kind?

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-03-24 03:23pm

To hope that any DNA survived beyond a jumble of horribly fragmented short segments, would be absolute fantasy, at best. But there are still plenty of useful proteins that might be recovered that will go a long way about telling us exactly what made T-Rex tick.

That assumes that the find is genuine, and not a hoax. (There is a creeping suspicion that there is the odd chance that another laboratory will study the material and find that it was the dried out material from a contemporary bird. Granted, scientific integrity has come a very long ways since the 1800s, but still, the cynicism is there...)

Firefox · Post by **Firefox** » 2005-03-24 03:26pm

From what it sounds like, the tissue was found after cracking open the femur. So unless there were some pre-existing fractures, I wouldn't suspect a hoax just yet.

Having said that, even if there's little or no DNA remaining, this could go a long way towards explaining how dinosaurs (or at least species similar to T-Rex) ticked, as you said. I'm especially interested in seeing if they can determine if it was endo- or exothermic.

McC wrote:But how realistic would 'cloning' a dinosaur from tissue cells alone be? Don't you need something more than just tissue cells? Like, reproductive tissue of some kind?

Dolly was cloned using cellular material from the host's mammary glands.

Steven Snyder · Post by **Steven Snyder** » 2005-03-24 03:29pm

I know that the DNA would have long since rotted away, but could any prehistoric viruses still be dormant in this soft tissue?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-03-24 03:30pm

This is simply amazing. Even if there's no DNA, there's bound to be some form of molecular messenger left, say some enzymes that are far sturdier than any DNA sequence. This could put paleobiology over the edge and into the 21st century. The very first real source of ancient biochemistry from the world's most feared land predator.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-03-24 03:31pm

Steven Snyder wrote:I know that the DNA would have long since rotted away, but could any prehistoric viruses still be dormant in this soft tissue?

Viruses need genetic material too, y'know.

Steven Snyder · Post by **Steven Snyder** » 2005-03-24 03:38pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote: Viruses need genetic material too, y'know.

Cellular DNA (from what I have studied) begins to deteriorate very quickly after the death of the cell. And there is some concern about viruses that may be buried in glaciers and icecaps that could one day be re-released into the environment.

So I just wonder what the shelf-life of a virus is, or is there?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-03-24 03:43pm

Viruses denature very quickly. The average flu virus particle will be useless in less than a few hours if left out in the open during day. Any viruses that may be in these cells may suffer a same fate as with the DNA given not that much separates the cytosol of the cell from the inner sanctum of the virus that holds its essence.

felineki · Post by **felineki** » 2005-03-24 04:34pm

Shinova wrote:I first thought that it just HAD to be a joke.

Had they delayed this announcement by 8 days, we'd have all the more reason not to believe it.

But I agree, those pics do look convincing... This is an incredible find.

Man, it's hard to type when you have a cat climbing over your arms...

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2005-03-24 04:46pm

Sweet Robot Monkey Jesus! This is amazing! I hope that we'll see some interesting findings from this discovery.

And I also welcome our Saurian Overlords.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2005-03-24 04:56pm

70 million years old, indeed.
More like 6-10 thousand years old.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2005-03-24 04:57pm

*Set's up CoAx .50 Cal HMG on roof* 'aint no t-rexs eating me so they'll have to settle for eating an excessive ammount of bullets.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-03-24 04:58pm

mother fucker!!!!!!!

this is fucking awesome!!! OMFG!!!

if even some dino DNA is retained, it means that DNA is capable of surviving such a process as fossilization. we could find smilodon DNA!! and all those ancient mammals!!

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2005-03-24 04:58pm

Exciting! Hopefully this discovery can yield some really interesting results.