I was listening to Public Radio on the way home from work this morning. They had the Harvard professor as a guest discussing the "soft tissue DNA" recovered from a fossil that is 88 million years old. They used a technique called "bone dissolving" to find the soft tissue. Because of the limited data base using animals that are alive today, the team had to postulate several avenues to get a "match". It was a cross between reptiles and birds. I have not seen the published paper but I understand the scientific community view the results with much skeptisim and doubt. Some even calling it a "joke". Any thoughts? I am very interested to hear from some biologists what their opionions of this discovery. I had read about bone dissolving a year or two back.
T-Rex DNA
- Thread starter krokah
- Start date
It’s hard to comment without any specific links or info. Here is an interesting Q&A in which dissolving fossil bones is mentioned a few times.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3411/01-ask.html
The paper I read was that they used antibodies to Chicken collagen and found that these also reacted against the ligament tissue.
The thing is, so I read, she was a third rate academic who tripped over this extremely rare sample. She NEEDS to milk this for her career and ergo publications. It seems many of the tests she ran are pretty simply so far. I think she was trying to think of what she could do all by herself to get total credit and then try to form some collaborations where she can still get the maximum credit.
Anyway, that's some of what I read long ago.
Michael
The thing is, so I read, she was a third rate academic who tripped over this extremely rare sample. She NEEDS to milk this for her career and ergo publications. It seems many of the tests she ran are pretty simply so far. I think she was trying to think of what she could do all by herself to get total credit and then try to form some collaborations where she can still get the maximum credit.
Anyway, that's some of what I read long ago.
Michael
Yes, but that has nothing to do with DNA. That relates to the finding of soft tissue within dinosaur fossil bones that retains sufficient antigenic integrity to be recognised by antibodies in an IHC experiment. Antibodies against chicken collagen (supposedly) also recognised dinosaur collagen due to the highly conserved nature of collagen.
Mind you, I find it equally amazing that IHC can be performed on 88myo tissue as it is to extract DNA from an 88myo fossil.
No. You're confusing science fiction with science reality.
Assuming DNA can be extracted, and assuming it’s usable, I imagine that sequencing of the DNA and phylogenetic/cladistic analysis of the sequences will verify whether it is dinosaur DNA or some other contaminating DNA from an extant source.
ok to ask a really stupid question but HOW?
We only know that human DNA is human because we have other human DNA to compare it too so its compleatly concivable that we could mestake dino DNA for the contaminate DNA we dont have a record for. If im wrong and there is some other way to verify it please correct me but the main way we verify things is either by DNA or by carbon dating as far as i know and you cant carbon date DNA
We only know that human DNA is human because we have other human DNA to compare it too so its compleatly concivable that we could mestake dino DNA for the contaminate DNA we dont have a record for. If im wrong and there is some other way to verify it please correct me but the main way we verify things is either by DNA or by carbon dating as far as i know and you cant carbon date DNA
well i read through that and it seems to agree with me, that contaminate DNA (ok not insect DNA) could well be mestaken for dino DNA as it relies on evolutionary pattens and we are still only SPECULATING that most Dinosaurs evolved into birds. We have no contempary relitives to compare it to and no DNA that can be varified to be contempary to the T-rex either for comparision. So basically if a unknown bird left DNA on the bones and we found it then we could quite easierly not only MESTAKE it for dino DNA but also try to use it as proof that dinosaures are related to birds (which could still be true but the contaminate couldnt be concidered proof)
We don’t need to make prior assumptions that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequences will determine this for us. We have sequence information for modern birds against which the putative dino DNA sequence will be compared. Base pair substitutions (indicative of evolutionary time) will be present in the bird DNA that will place birds on a phylogenetic tree after dinosaurs.
see thats the problem. There is a huge gap between birds contempary to us and life contempary to the dinosaurse and so if we were to go back say, pre 1000 BC we could well find life that we have no previous record for. This would mean that even if its contaminate it would possably show the nessary markers
No DNA that old is complete. It's fragmentary and not useful for sequencing, even if you could find some.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Like these ?
It's interesting that, for example, pine resin has antibiotic properties.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2001/10/16/pineheartburn_011016.html
No they didn't. Even in the unlikely chance that an insect would bite a dinosaur, the DNA is too fragmented to be useful.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
They didn't what ?
I agree though.. but it's not an outlandish idea to research how much DNA is left in such insects, even if it is only their own.
They cannot sequence even the insect's DNA trapped in amber. DNA isn't that durable.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Not even fragments ?
They can't put the fragments back together, they aren't useful.