Can soft tissue of dinosaurs really exist?

Paleontologists have done a study in 2005 proving that soft tissue can be recovered from dinosaur bones that have been decomposed. This is a great discovery that extends the field of biological molecular conservation.

But the new study challenges the finding that recovered dinosaur tissues are actually biofilms, or viscous substances.

Thomas Kaye, a researcher at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington, said: 'I have believed that we have found preserved soft tissue, but I have to change my mind. We have to go where science leads. And science makes me believe that this is really a biofilm '.

The original study, published in Science, confirms the discovery of blood vessels and what looks like intact cells inside the fossil bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex . Scientists dissolved bone in acid, leaving only blood vessels and cell-like structures. But in an article published on July 30 in PloS ONE, the open newspaper of the Public Library of Science, Kaye and co-authors said that the real inside of the bone of T. rex is the birth membrane. Learning the mucus produced by bacteria covers the previous gaps that are the location of blood vessels and cells. He compares this phenomenon to the phenomenon that occurs when a bucket of rainwater is placed in the garden. After a few weeks the bucket will have viscous formation on the inside of the bucket.

Kaye said: 'If you can dissolve the bucket, we will find a soft and wet form of a bucket. That is the viscous substance. This also happens similar to dinosaur bones. If the bone is removed, the other thing is the biofilm-shaped biofilm. "

The co-authors of the study are Gary Gaugler of Microtechnics Inc. at Granite Bay, Calif. And Zbigniew Sawlowicz belongs to the Jagiellonian university in Poland.

The arrows on the electron microscope image indicate the biofilm, or viscous substance adhering to the vascular wall on the dinosaur bones.(Photo: Thomas Kaye)

According to Kaye, he began his research in hopes of becoming the second person to find preserved dinosaur tissue. In addition to the acid washing process used in the previous study, he added a test method using electron microscopy before the bone was dissolved. He was very surprised at what he got.

The researchers found that what was previously identified as remnants of blood cells due to preserved iron is actually a structure called framboid - an iron-containing mineral mass. They found similar spheres in many other fossils from different ages, including an extinct marine creature called Amonit. In the Amonite fossil, the researchers found a sphere in a place where iron could not have any connection with the presence of blood.

Kaye said: 'We have determined that this structure is so common that it cannot be an unusually preserved tissue. We realize that it cannot be the preserved tissue as ever thought of before. '

Scientists also dissolved bone in acid, as previously done, and discovered similar soft tissue structures. They conducted comparisons using infrared mass spectroscopy and determined that the above structure is more like a modern biofilm than modern collagen - an extracellular protein related to bone. Carbon dating back to 1960. Using electron microscopes, researchers were able to observe the coating on the walls of vascular compartments containing air bubbles. Air bubbles are related to the presence of methane-producing bacteria. Besides, the researchers examined something like a small crack in the vascular cavity and found that they were actually small pipes or troughs. Consider with greater magnification that reveals that the tubes are round and connected. This indicates that they are organically produced when the bacteria move in a very thick solution.

'From the evidence above, we can determine what was previously announced as the soft tissue of dinosaurs in fact, biofilms, or viscous substances.

Refer:
Kaye TG, Gaugler G, Sawlowicz Z. Dinosaurian Soft Tissues Interpreted as Bacterial Biofilms.PLoS ONE, 2008;3 (7): e2808 DOI: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0002808