Dinosaur Soft Tissue on 60 Minutes

 

dinosaur RBCLeslie Stahl, long-time CBS journalist, interview on 60 Minutes with Mary Schweitzer in December marked a new paleontology arena – the field of dinosaur soft tissue (pictured left). Schweitzer, an American paleontologist at North Carolina State University, unexpectedly discovered soft tissues from a Tyrannosaurus rex bone sent from the Museum of the Rockies in Montana.

Schweitzer’s controversial report, “Gender-Specific Reproductive Tissue in Ratites and Tyrannosaurus rex,” published in the journal Science in 2005, was hotly debated. In the dinosaur femur, dated 68 million years old, Schweitzer identified proteinaceous soft tissues generally thought to decompose within weeks.

While the purpose of Schweitzer’s study initially centered on investigating evolutionary relationships between ratites (non-flying birds, like ostriches) ) and dinosaurs, scientists quickly changed focus to the unlikely “excellent preservation” of soft tissues.

Dinosaur soft tissues, now seemingly lasting millions of years, challenged the current understanding of fossil record dating practices and protein preservation.

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