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| | You may have heard the hypothesis that modern birds are distant relatives
of dinosaurs, but the resent study proved it to be more than just a
hypotheses. Scientifically speaking, a hypothesis is something that is
theoretically probable, but not yet supported by the facts and practical studies.
Theory, on the other hand, is hypothesis supported by the hard
scientific facts and findings. Such is the case of the recent study
of soft bone tissues extracted from a 70 million year old T-Rex found
in Montana in 2003, who was a predator just like
Milf hunter these days.
It was always thought that soft tissues could not survive the test of
times are get disintegrated within millions of years. So, sort tissues
of dinosaur were thought to never be found in a state suitable for
scientific studies. What a surprise it was for the biologists of
North Carolina State University when they saw the preserved proteins
in the T. rex bones which were in fairly good condition for molecular
studies. The team of researchers is led by Mary Higby Schweitzer who
was fascinated by the findings, no less than the rest of scientific
community. Fossils like that come once in a century, Schweitzer says.
It basically brought the stereotypes of what was not possible, and
showed us that with good enough sediments, there are still dinosaur
bones, and other prehistoric animal bones which have soft tissues
preserved well enough to be used in studies and can provide solid
scientific facts and support for one theory or reject another. This is
how hypotheses become theories.
Basically the best scientific material in the old fossils that ban
ever be extracted is the DNA of species that lived long time ago.
However DNA structure is quite fragile to withstand the destruction of
time, weather, climate and chemicals through millions of years. We
will probably never be able to find DNA of dinosaurs, because they
have been broken and disintegrated into simpler molecules. Some DNAs
may found in woolly mammoths but we are talking about completely
different conditions - ice and snow - almost idea for preserving DNA.
With dinosaurs we are not that lucky, so to say, - the conditions of
their habitats were quite the opposite to optimal - sun, high
temperatures and lots of smaller rodent animals who ate the remains of
dead bodies and their bones.
That said, the current study made a scientific breakthrough by
extracting well preserved proteins from the soft bone tissues of the T-Rex.
Proteins are the next best thing that contains information on encoded
genes. Looking at proteins we can say many things about the genes
which were in the DNA. T-rex proteins were shown to be very similar to
those of a modern chick |
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