Dinosaur Fossil Found With Preserved Soft Tissue

damn_registrars writes "A fossilized hadrosaur has been uncovered in South Dakota that has preserved soft tissue. This is described as a "mummified" dinosaur, and allows for a look at the skin and musculature of some parts of this animal. The find was reported by a 24 year old Yale graduate student of paleontology."

Question

[Major Blud (789630)]

According to the FTA, the find was originally located in 1999, and partially excavated in 2004 with a full investigation commencing in 2006. Having never studied archeology or paleontology, is it common for sites like this to be passed by even though there is something located there?

Re:Question

[by Anonymous Coward]

Dinosaurs can be big. Really big. I mean, you may think ...

Oh, wait, wrong analogy. Seriously though, the phrase that is most relevant to answering your question is in the article: "10-ton block", plus another 4 tons, which they whittled down to "only" 5 tons in total. This is not your usual fossil extraction task. It can take significant money and time to set up what is needed to excavate a find that big, you have to transport it, and you have to find a spot for it back in the lab after you do extract it. This is back-breaking, painstaking work, and getting together a big enough chain gang^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H I mean group of volunteers to do the job isn't always easy, especially when there may be a dozen other sites in the region where excavations are already under way, and to which the resources you have are already allocated. So, sometimes a site gets marked with its GPS coordinates and hidden until the resources are available. Also, sometimes you have to start the excavation before you really realize the importance of what you have found. That seems to be the case for this specimen, based on the comments in the article. They didn't originally realize how special it was.

So, yeah, what you describe is common, especially in areas that are both remote and prolific, and especially for large dinosaur specimens. It can take years.

FTA?

[CarpetShark (865376)]

According to the FTA...

the Fucking Terranosaur Article?

Re:

[osu-neko (2604)]

According to the FTA, the find was originally located in 1999, and partially excavated in 2004 with a full investigation commencing in 2006. Having never studied archeology or paleontology, is it common for sites like this to be passed by even though there is something located there?

I don't think it's a matter of being "passed by" as much as this is how long it takes with all available resources being devoted to it. This is the United States we're talking about -- basic science doesn't get funded unless t

Re:Question

[Cedric Tsui (890887)]

According to an archeology professor of mine at Queen's University, this is very common. Excavation is a slow process, and one which is dependent on the weather. Furthermore, it is a funding intensive project.

You find a site, then you apply for funding. When you get your funding, you start the dig. Generally you only get the summer as rain, snow or ice can damage artifact and generally make digging harder. At the end of the digging season, you place some sort of modern marker at the edges and bottom of the trench (my professor used soda cans) and fill them in until the next time you can come back.

If your site proves to be interesting, you can get the funding renewed for another summer, and as a rule of thumb they give you funding every 2 years. This allows the funding to be spread out over a wider range of projects, and ensures the scientists have the time to publish what they found during the excavation.

Re:

[Headw1nd (829599)]

The cans he's talking about are buried at the edges of the excavation as it's being filled in, in order to define the limits of the previous trench. Then when you come back the next year you can quickly remove your fill dirt. The idea is to use something unmistakably modern (i.e. not a rock). You wouldn't pick them up unless you were digging at the site. If you're digging for litter, well, I admire your dedication, but you're being overzealous.

North Dakota, Not South Dakota

[eldavojohn (898314)]

First line of the summary:

A fossilized hadrosaur has been uncovered in South Dakota that has preserved soft tissue.

First line of the article:

A high school student hunting fossils in the badlands of his native North Dakota discovered an extremely rare mummified dinosaur that includes not just bones but also seldom seen fossilized soft tissue such as skin and muscles, scientists will announce today.

For those of you who have not visited both North & South Dakota, I have. They are, in fact, not the same place. The submitter was probably confused as the belief that nothing comes from North Dakota is a well known fact. However, this news and fossil flies right in the face of that so I have to rework my post graduate thesis on black holes--it seems information can escape.

Also, since I just watched Bender's Big Score repeatedly, "It's DOLOMITE, baby!"

You see, beneath the fossil's crunchy, mineral shell, there's still a creamy core of hadrosaur nougat!

Re:North Dakota, Not South Dakota

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

Oh sure. Next I suppose you're going to try to convince us that there's a NEW Mexico. I'm not falling for that one again...

Re:North Dakota, Not South Dakota

[Jesus_666 (702802)]

There was, in the early nineties. It didn't work out and they had to re-release Classic Mexico. It was the biggest failure of the North American nation industry until the Crystal Canada fiasco.

Shameless Futurama reference

[LiquidMind (150126)]

It didn't work out and they had to re-release Classic Mexico

Which is why we'll market it as New Mexico. Then, when everyone hates it, we'll bring back Mexico Classic and make billions! (source [imsdb.com])

Re:

[ari_j (90255)]

As a North Dakotan, I read about this find earlier today and was looking for a comment like yours to see if I had to write my own. I wish that our foreign enemies whose primary complaint is that Americans are ignorant of the rest of the world could understand that it's just a vocal minority (majority? ... I'm not ready to be that cynical, just yet) of Americans who are ignorant of the entire world, including the most basic facts about their own nation.

For what it's worth, North Dakotans are as unaware t

Well, damn

[Daniel Dvorkin (106857)]

From the summary, I was hoping it would be actual dinosaur jerky. But it's actually fossilized tissue -- neat, and a rare find, but not enough for any actual biochemistry.

Re:Well, damn

[nacturation (646836)]

Well what if we paid $999 for a complete DNA scan and sent it in?
 

No clone wars

[oboreruhito (925965)]

RTFA. There's no DNA; the fossilization process was fast enough to fossilize soft tissue. It's not organic material.

Although it is described as "mummified," the 65 million-year-old duckbilled dinosaur that scientists have named Dakota bears no similarity to the leather-skinned human mummies retrieved from ancient tombs in Egypt. Time long ago transformed Dakota's soft tissue into mineralized rock, preserving it for the ages.

"It's a dinosaur that was turned into stone, essentially," said Lyson, 24, now a graduate student in paleontology at Yale University.

Re:

[mpe (36238)]

There's no DNA; the fossilization process was fast enough to fossilize soft tissue. It's not organic material.

It is a very useful find however. Since it enables techniques such as working out muscles from their attachment points to the bones to be refined. As well as examination of such tissues can show how these extinct animals are related to ones which exist now.

Re:

[ultranova (717540)]

RTFA. There's no DNA; the fossilization process was fast enough to fossilize soft tissue. It's not organic material.

Yes, but all you have to do is cast Stone to Flesh on the fossil to bring it back to life. Quickly, before they release the Fourth Edition of D&D, for you never know if this particular spell will be removed !

Re:

[Copid (137416)]

Is newton not a real person either?

I'd like to point out that I am against both antibiotics and the refrigeration of meat and dairy products, as Newton did not come out in favor of either one. Relativity blows too.

Re:

[MightyMartian (840721)]

Cherry picking for the exceedingly small number of scientists who might (if their words aren't being taken out of context, of course) not accept evolution is a laughable, and ultimately self-defeating exercise, because, of course, the overwhelming majority of scientists do accept evolution. If it's just a competition of lists, then evolution so thoroughly defeats the evolutionary pseudo-skeptics that one would think quoting them would be an embarassment. But not to worry, evolution deniers are so far down

Not real soft tissue

[InvisblePinkUnicorn (1126837)]

This isn't like that other discovery where what appeared to be red tissue was found inside a bone. This is just fossilized soft tissue. No soft tissue is present, just the mineral representation of what the tissue would have looked like, its structure, etc.

Another great moment in science:

[martianred (1065052)]

a hadrosaur's backside was about 25 percent larger than previously thought.

That's... great. ... So when can we clone it already?

Re:

[Jesus_666 (702802)]

The larger-backsize finding was actually met with exuberance by the international archaeological community, with butt expert and OBE Sir Mixalot exclaiming "I like big butts and I cannot lie".

"You get sprung", added Mixalot.

However, not all scientists applaud the finding, with polymath and host of the popular science show Infinite Solutions Mark Erickson criticizing that this finding will further reduce the scientific community's interest in tiny dinosaurs, which he describes as sadly overlooked.

Dino DNA

[Raul654 (453029)]

This isn't the first time they've gotten soft tissue from a dinosaur. A few years ago, they were trying to haul some dinosaur bones from a dig site by helocopter, but the bones wouldn't fit. After trying to solve the problem several ways, they made the agonized decision to break some of the largest bones. When they broke them open, they found soft tissue in one of them (I think it was a femur). A friend of mine (getting his phd in bioinfomatics) mentioned that they had managed to extract dinosaur proteins from this, and that because proteins are much more unstable then nucleic acids, it was entirely likely that they could extract dinosaur DNA from the specimen.

Also: Mammoth DNA

[Raul654 (453029)]

Also, in case anyone missed it, a few months back, some researchers extracted [nationalgeographic.com] enough woolly mammoth DNA from mammoth hairs to sequence it

Re:

[tomatensaft (661701)]

Hey, I've got a business idea. What would you think if we would breed those mammoths as livestock and sell their meat (Delicious Mammoth Jerky?) and, of course, ivory! And sure enough, many zoos around the globe would want to buy one for their exhibits. That would probably save the elephants from extinction...

Re:

[John Hasler (414242)]

You don't have to worry about the Endangered Species Act unless the critter in question is on the list. However in most states you can only get a license to keep wild animals if you can show that the particular animals you propose to keep came from a licensed breeder who could not have gotten a license without showing that his animals came from a licensed breeder. Since your cloned mammoths would be the direct, immediate descendants of wild animals, the authorities would obviously have to sieze them and r

Re:

[Fred_A (10934)]

Og has mammoth license. Is written on cave wall.

Re:

[jollyreaper (513215)]

A friend of mine (getting his phd in bioinfomatics) mentioned that they had managed to extract dinosaur proteins from this, and that because proteins are much more unstable then nucleic acids, it was entirely likely that they could extract dinosaur DNA from the specimen.

Please remind him to keep it away from the amphibian DNA.

Re:

[langelgjm (860756)]

It's been several years since I've looked at any of the literature on the topic of ancient DNA, and my particular area of interest was the sequencing of human and Neandertal DNA in the arena of phylogenetics, but as I remember, the general consensus was that it would be extremely unlikely to be able to extract, amplify, and sequence enough DNA from specimens beyond, say, about 100,000 years old. The difficulties posed in specimens of geologic age would be even greater.

Apart from deterioration, contaminatio

Re:

[langelgjm (860756)]

Apologies for replying to my own post, but I managed to find the article I mentioned. There were two, actually: "Golenberg EM. 1991. Amplification and analysis of Miocene plant fossil DNA. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 333:419-427." and "Golenberg EM, Giannasi E, Clegg M, Smiley CJ, Durban M, Henderson D and Zurawski G. 1990. Chloroplast sequence from a Miocene magnolia species. Nature 344:656-658." Golenberg believed he had sequenced a 770 base pair nucleotide chain fr

Also In news: Dinosaur Saddle

[by Anonymous Coward]

A team of creationist paleontologists from the Discovery Institute's main field research arm announced today that they had discovered the remains of a large manmade object confirmed to be an ancient dinosaur saddle. The Discovery Institute's discovery was discovered in the remote Dusty Rivers area of southwestern Arizona. A spokesman for the paleontological team said that the dinosaur saddle provides irrefutable proof that man and dinosaurs lived simultaneously, as predicted by most creationist or "intelligent design" doctrines.

http://www.avantnews.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=126 [avantnews.com]

Re:

[orclevegam (940336)]

I clicked the link and half expected to be redirected to goatse or one of those, but was rather surprised to find a real site on the other end. Next question is, is that a crack pot news site run by ID proponents, a joke site like the onion, or a real news site that's just running a crackpot story?

RTFL

[mangu (126918)]

is that a crack pot news site run by ID proponents, a joke site like the onion, or a real news site that's just running a crackpot story?

Let me guess, that link mentions "the Discovery Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Seattle with affiliates operating at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C." and "we know Velociraptor was a vegetarian, as can be clearly deduced from its long rows of razor-sharp teeth, perfectly designed for tearing leaves from trees or rooting for truffles and other buried

Re:

[Brummund (447393)]

From the article: "Dr. Booble, who received his doctorate in paleontology from the respected Holy Patriot! Bible University and Correspondence College of Claptrappe, Oklahoma"

It is indeed quite real. I fondly remember Dr. Booble's lectures, and I would like to take this opportunity to wish him, his 3 wives and 27 children all the best. I hope you guys continue to dominate Claptrappe's basket, soccer and football teams!

Re:

[FiloEleven (602040)]

It was found in "Mud Flaps, AZ" by one "Dr. Booble." Looks legitimate to me...

Re:

[orclevegam (940336)]

Well, what do you think this part suggests?

Dr. Booble's colleague, Dr. D. Oxy Ribonucleic

He was born for this type of work? Clearly intelligent design at work.

Re:

[LingNoi (1066278)]

I'm not taking anything seriously from a guy called Booble. I seriously doubt he even earned his title of Dr. from a real University.

This has happened before

[Aqua OS X (458522)]

FYI, this has happened a few times before. PBS Nova Science Now recently did a piece on something similar.

Watch Online:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3411/01.html [pbs.org]

Re:

[jamstar7 (694492)]

Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Condi, of course.

Was the dinosaur

[antifoidulus (807088)]

smashing a house when it died?

Dinosaur = Balmer?

[Laebshade (643478)]

*looks at article below this one*

Maybe he was throwing chairs?

A quote from Dr. Malcom

[sexybomber (740588)]

1. God creates dinosaurs
2. God destroys dinosaurs
3. God creates man
4. Man destroys God
5. Man creates dinosaurs

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Of course you'd forget the best part:

6. Dinosaurs eat man... women inherit the Earth.

Jurassic Park?

[Floritard (1058660)]

I know it's just a movie but they completely sold me on the idea of getting dinosaur DNA from blood in mosquitos trapped in dried tree sap deposits. Was that all a bunch of crapola? I had assumed they had all kinds of dino DNA just sitting in a fridge somewhere waiting for cloning to really take off. Do we really not have any dino DNA on record?

Re:Jurassic Park?

[PieSquared (867490)]

Some facts for you:

1.) When cloning a sheep to give birth to itself, by putting a complete strand of its own DNA in its own egg cells in its own womb, we would have a one in several hundred chance of success. We don't know why, but the rest would be miscarriages, still births, or otherwise non-viable. The cloned animal would die early of old age, nobody knows why.

2.) The Human Genome Project to sequence *ONE* complete set of DNA for a single human took us 13 years and 3 billion dollars. That's comparable to the Apollo project, to sequence *ONE* example of a complex being's DNA.

3.) DNA is relatively unstable. I doesn't survive completely intact for 65 million years no matter how you preserve it.

Mosquitoes trapped in amber wouldn't be great sources of DNA - it would have still decomposed over time. Not in the "something ate it" sense of the word, but in the "radioactive particles" sense of the word. So the DNA would be there, but fragmented. Analyzing one strand of complete, non-fragmented strand of DNA was an Epic undertaking. Doing it with hundreds of strands that were chopped into pieces is probably beyond our capabilities. We could also get this DNA from red blood cells found in a T-rex fossil recently, or just from grinding up the core of bones for *really* tiny bits.

Next, you can't just patch DNA in a dinosaur with DNA from a reptile. It just doesn't work that way, and birds are closer relatives anyway if it *did* work that way.

And then you'd have to somehow put together a DNA molecule. We can't do that yet. I'm totally serious, we can't. We can manipulate pieces maybe 10 or so genes long in existing DNA, but I don't think we could piece billions of genes long strands together from a blueprint even given all the time in the world.

Finally, you'd need a viable dinosaur egg. You can't just pick someone else's egg and stick dino DNA in it, eggs are highly specialized. You might get away with something as similar as elephant-mammoth but there just isn't anything *like* a dinosaur, nothing *near* close enough for a viable egg.

If by some miracle you managed to find full dino DNA, sequence the DNA, assemble the DNA, and put them in an artificial egg that worked... you'd have to do a thousand trials before you could say with any certainty you'd messed something up to make it fail instead of just having bad luck. So don't worry about Jurassic Park happening anytime soon.

Damage in sequence...

[DrYak (748999)]

That would be theoretically hard.

With the mosquitoes technique you'll find in the end several fragment of DNA per mosquitoe, with no way to know if they come from the same dino or if its contaminent from the mosquitoe.
In the end you may have a very large library containing lots of sequence fragment. The building of this library would require a lot of money and time and won't have any direct benefit (= few would like to fund it).
Then you would unleash bio informaticians to start mining the database, trying t

Done before

[cthulu_mt (1124113)]

I think they stole this story from the episode of "Denver the Last Dinosaur" wherein Denver disguises himself as a mummy to avoid capture.

Another example of my childhood being recycled. Maybe them can get Michael Bay to crap all over the live-action version.

Fossilized what?

[dr_strang (32799)]

I thought it said "fossilized hairdresser" when I first looked at the headline. THEN I thought "Wilma Flintstone".

Welcome to Surreal Monday.

Large Backside ...

[Archangel Michael (180766)]

"a hadrosaur's backside was about 25 percent larger than previously thought."

So, its a J-Lo-asaur ?

Or perhaps a Bodonkadonkasaur?

MMMmmm!

[Shuh (13578)]

Tastes like chicken!

Re:

[wattrlz (1162603)]

Don't worry, we'll get it all back from ticket sales at the Jurrassic Park we'll make cloning these mummified dinosaurs.