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To: tomzz
"Last summer, scientists had to break a trex leg bone in half to get it on a small helicopter, and this is what they found inside the thing:"

Yes, they found a 3 mm in diameter hard piece of bone that had to be treated with acids to get it *softened*. There were no blood cells, nor DNA found. It was as much *meat* as a pet rock is alive.
291 posted on 07/03/2006 8:22:49 PM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman (Gas up your tanks!!)
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To: CarolinaGuitarman
Yes, they found a 3 mm in diameter hard piece of bone that had to be treated with acids to get it *softened*. There were no blood cells, nor DNA found. It was as much *meat* as a pet rock is alive.

Says you... Here's what the Reuters article had to say:

Paleontologists forced to break the creature's massive thighbone to get it on a helicopter found not a solid piece of fossilized bone, but instead something looking a bit less like a rock.

When they got it into a lab and chemically removed the hard minerals, they found what looked like blood vessels, bone cells and perhaps even blood cells.

"They are transparent, they are flexible," said Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University and Montana State University, who conducted the study.

She said the vessels were flexible and in some cases their contents could be squeezed out.

"The microstructures that look like cells are preserved in every way," added Schweitzer, whose findings were published in the journal Science.

"Preservation of this extent, where you still have this flexibility and transparency, has never been seen in a dinosaur before." Feathers, hair and fossilized egg contents yes, but not truly soft tissue.

Studying the soft tissues may help answer many questions about dinosaurs. Were they cold-blooded like reptiles, warm-blooded like mammals, or somewhere in-between? How are they related to living animals?

"If we can isolate certain proteins, then perhaps we can address the issue of the physiology of the dinosaur," Schweitzer said.


306 posted on 07/03/2006 8:36:21 PM PDT by tomzz
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To: CarolinaGuitarman
>>Yes, they found a 3 mm in diameter hard piece of bone that had to be treated with acids to get it *softened*. There were no blood cells, nor DNA found. It was as much *meat* as a pet rock is alive.<<

Where did you read this? I have been following this story since it broke and have been using google to identify new stories. I have yet to find any more details since February, and none of them made the assertions you are posting here. There was really no relevant information beyond the basic premises of the original stories.
508 posted on 07/05/2006 10:07:37 AM PDT by RobRoy (The Internet is about to do to Evolution what it did to Dan Rather. Information is power.)
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