Some nights I fall asleep dreaming of the day when a piece of 70-million-year-old vasculature will arrive at my doorstep to allow me to clone my pet dinosaur. This same dream was realized by a group of paleontologists two weeks ago, although it arrived far from their doorstep. While scientists still remain skeptical about the development of an actual Jurassic Park, the discovery of a Tyrannosauraus rex beneath 1,000 cubic yards of sandstone along the Missouri River in northeastern Montana has brought cause for great "cell-ebration" in many realms of the scientific community.
In order to remove the fossilized beast from its home in the Hell Creek formation - which has actually become a haven for fossils - the paleontologists were forced to break the thighbone into pieces to fit it aboard a helicopter. By breaking the bone, they were astonished to find soft tissue. Water is the substance in which mineralizing compounds generally creep into ancient skeletons and fossilize them, turning many biological materials essentially into rock. In this case, however, water had not crept into the femer, thus leaving it hollow.
A bone usually contains many blood vessels, which bring in "bone-specific" cells known as osteocytes and follow with the calcium that makes the hard tissue. Mary Schweitzer, the North Carolina State University-based project leader, claimed that the group inverted this biological process by first removing the mineralized calcium to expose blood vessels, osteocytes and a fibrous matrix of collagen (the protein constituent of bone). Because of the soft tissue, the group was able to investigate the vessels with a probe.
According to the project researchers, if antibodies that recognize collagen react with chemical extracts of this fossil bone, there is a possibility of discovering why this dinosaur was preserved in such a special way. In addition, the team will likely learn the beast's diet, gender and sexual maturity. This discovery may make commonplace the study of protein structures of ancient creatures through their remains.
Because of the extremely old age of the bone, DNA fragments are probably the best that could be hoped for from the find. While it is possible that individual proteins can be isolated from the specimen, Scientific American claims many scientists insist organic molecules cannot survive beyond 1,000,000 years. Despite these claims, the ability to isolate soft tissues has broadened the horizons of future paleontological discovery.
Researchers compared the T. Rex material to structures found in the bones of ostriches, because living birds are the closest relatives to dinosaurs available for study. The scientists who announced the find said that the dinosaur blood vessels were "virtually indistinguishable" from those in ostrich bones.
The ostrich is today's largest bird, and many paleontologists believe birds are living descendants of some dinosaurs. There are many similarities in both the branching of the blood vessels and the presence of reddish brown dots, which could be nuclei from endothelial cells that line blood vessels. The next time you see an ostrich, don't be turned off by its sleek, pink neck and its otherwise rotund physique. It may hold the key to tomorrow's Jurassic Park.
Many ecologists call for the reinvigoration of destroyed ecosystems by reinstituting species that once inhabited the area. As much as I would love to have to worry about dinosaurs in my backyard along with the pesky squirrels, the future of America is probably best preserved by returning only those species that inhabited the continent after the Chicxulub asteroid impact 65 million years ago.
The serendipitous nature of this discovery shows that it is not always wise for scientists to consider extensive manipulation of specimens as inappropriate. In this day of computer modeling, a specimen always can be mapped and a model recreated if accidental mishandling were to lead to destruction. To be too rooted in past perceptions might eventually prove fatal to the discovery of possible DNA reservoirs from the fossil remains of extinct species. The commercial ploy to make consumers buy what they break may soon be adapted to a scientific slogan: "You break it, you discover it."
I'm not advocating going into museums and breaking all of the dinosaur bones, but sometimes it's important to learn from serendipity. In sum, cut up your femurs before it's too late. The other bones can be left for posterity.
Ryan McElveen can be reached at ryanmc@virginia.edu.
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