Dr. Mary Schweitzer, assistant professor of paleontology with a
joint appointment at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, has
succeeded in isolating soft tissue from the femur of a
68-million-year-old dinosaur. Not only is the tissue largely
intact, it's still transparent and pliable, and microscopic
interior structures resembling blood vessels and even cells are
still present. In a paper published in the March 25 edition of
the journal Science, Schweitzer describes the process by which
she and her technician, Jennifer Wittmeyer, isolated soft
organic tissue from the leg bone of a 68-million-year-old
Tyrannosaurus rex. Schweitzer was interested in studying the
microstructure and organic components of a dinosaur's bone. All
bone is made up of a combination of protein (and other organic
molecules) and minerals. In modern bone, removing the minerals
leaves supple, soft organic materials that are much easier to
work with in a lab. In contrast, fossilized bone is believed to
be completely mineralized, meaning no o