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Tyrannosaur soft tissue found

Perfect Tommy

06:55 / 25.03.05

A 70-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex recently discovered in Montana, scientists reported today, has apparently yielded the improbable: soft tissues, including blood vessels and possibly cells, that "retain some of their original flexibility, elasticity and resilience."

An interviewee on BBC World Service suggested it may be possible that there was some sort of molecular-level fossilization going on rather than being the actual guts of a dinosaur. But still, I don't know what to say beyond 'wow.'

All Acting Regiment

10:19 / 25.03.05

This is indeed amazing. Apparently the matter they found was very simmilar to the equivalent in an Ostrich- which again makes that link look stronger.

It would be great if they managed to extract the stuff and use it to find out more about the animal.

TeN

23:34 / 25.03.05

I saw this the other day, and it really is incredible. I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more coverage. But I'm still confused about how soft tissue could be preserved for that long. If it were frozen, I could understand it, but this is in Montana.

Illihit

00:40 / 26.03.05

The first thing that comes to mind is Jurassic Park when I read this story.

All Acting Regiment

19:47 / 26.03.05

Indeed- people have been speculating if they could use it to clone T rex, but I heard one of the scientists say that trying to clone it from what materials and technology we've currently got would be like "trying to make a car by chucking all the parts down a staircase"

Captain Zoom

18:54 / 28.03.05

Has there been any more news on this? I have to wonder what kept soft tissue relatively fresh for 70 million years. The food preservatives industry must be having a cow. Or a T-Rex, I suppose

Illihit

23:32 / 28.03.05

It was said to have been found in sandstone and the fossilizing mineral in the tissues were dissolved by a weak acid. Not to sure if that'll provide a tasty meal.

I guess we won't hear too much more on this until the tissue is utilized in providing some groundbreaking information.

sine

21:52 / 03.04.05

All Acting Regiment

20:19 / 04.04.05

It would be interesting to see the creationist response if they managed to recreate a living one. Probably the intense, alien fear it would generate would be amusing to watch as it stripped away blinkered establishment belief structures (it might do).

grant

18:56 / 05.04.05

Silly Legba!

Everyone knows dinosaurs existed! They were just creations of Satan who never got put on the Ark! That's why they're under so much old mud.

sine

22:34 / 05.04.05

Furthermore, I believe I've seen real-life photographic evidence (well, almost) on this very board that hadrosaurs breathed fire to like totally destroy their foes.

Katherine

08:03 / 06.04.05

I think the part that does scare me is the fact if they could make a t-rex they would. That was the part that worried me about the book Jurassic Park it's just so very much what a human would try and do given the chance.

sine

14:29 / 06.04.05

Call me reckless, but I've been toe-tapping my impatience for a cloned mammoth since Dolly. I want the Great White North filled with mammoths. A huge "Hairy Hannibal" mammoth preserve in the middle of Nunavut.

Of course, the T rex is a different story. If I've learned one thing from Michael Crichton, it is that if you build anachronistic theme parks the "attractions" will find a way to go berserk and kill you - like Yul Brenner all stone-faced atop a hooting velociraptor, swiveling jerkily in his saddle to kill you with a lasso and sixguns and pixelvision.

All Acting Regiment

00:33 / 08.06.06

I guess the key would be to give the thing a very wide berth. Estimate it's territory range, if it has one, and put it in a national park ten times bigger than that range, not a theme park, and build fences and stuff, but bigger than the ones in JP. And watch it from a helicopter, not a van.

Tamayyurt

02:13 / 08.06.06

And pray the helicopter doesn't go down in the middle of the attraction.

astrojax69

01:36 / 09.06.06

don't need a chopper, just watch it with google earth: dinosaur watch

Tamayyurt

02:15 / 09.06.06

I do find it interesting that the tissue found was similar to that of an ostrich... maybe with enough genetic tweeking we can get an O-Rex?

All Acting Regiment

08:19 / 09.06.06

We sort of already have- Ostriches and other the Ratites (the Emus and Kiwis) evolved from small flying birds that would have looked like budgies- they're already on the way to reclaiming the dinosaur morphology, which has already been hacked into by those huge flightless birds that were around at the start of the mammal age.

And all birds are always already dinosaurs. It's pretty complicated.

All Acting Regiment

08:47 / 09.06.06

One of the big bastards I mentioned.

Also, there was this Mihirung on Devil Duck that lived in Australia right up until the pliestocene:

lekvar

23:13 / 09.06.06

The Elephantbird was about the size of the specimin you show, Legba, and was still waling the Earth as late as the 16th century. There is a general concensus that the Madigascar Elelephantbird was where the legend of the Roc originated.

All Acting Regiment

05:36 / 10.06.06

Nasty buggers, aren't they?

Tryphena Absent

13:37 / 10.06.06

And pray the helicopter doesn't go down in the middle of the attraction.

Oh, people are always losing their lives for science. If they go down because of a helicopter crash then at least we can blame the mechanic.

matthew.

05:24 / 11.06.06

Call me reckless, but I've been toe-tapping my impatience for a cloned mammoth since Dolly. I want the Great White North filled with mammoths. A huge "Hairy Hannibal" mammoth preserve in the middle of Nunavut.

I don't mean to be a spoilsport, but wouldn't it be better to clone animals that are on the verge of extinction, rather than those that have already kicked the proverbial bucket? Like those damn scary eagles people are always trying to protect?

That being said, I'd love to see a real mammoth.

All Acting Regiment

10:09 / 11.06.06

You'll have to ask Xoc about that.

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