Scientists Just Discovered Dinosaur Cells That Survived 68 Million Years — Including Soft Tissue in a T. Rex Fossil

Some people still think that dinosaurs aren’t what we imagine them to be. A creature that dominated the Earth longer than we ever did, for approximately 165 million years. Well, scientists have just found dinosaur cells that survived for 68 million years; they were believed to go extinct 65 million years ago. This further increases our understanding of them, but some have debunked a few theories.

What Did Scientists Find?

Dr Mary Schweitzer discovers T-rex blood cells - Horizon: Dinosaurs: The Hunt for Life - BBC

In 2005, a team of scientists led by Dr. Mary Schweitzer made incredible findings inside a fossil of a Tyrannosaurus rex. What they found is something thought not capable of lasting that long, soft tissues, blood vessels, and dinosaur cells. Scientists were still baffled that they had remained intact for millions of years.

The dinosaur fossil they have found was from Montana. After extracting it, scientists began their experimentation to find anything new about the dinosaurs. Then they dissolved the hard minerals in its bone, leading to the discovery of stretchy, flexible tissues inside. What this tells us is that there might be a few more ways for dinosaurs to be preserved than we currently know.

Read more: VOA

How Did the Tissues Stay Preserved?

Scientists believe that iron from the dinosaur’s blood may have preserved those soft tissues. Iron is a mineral that has the ability to preserve materials because it can create barriers that protect them against corrosions. Furthermore, they may also have some anti-microbial effect helping preserve tissues and molecules for extended amount of time, and in this case, about 68 million years.

This discovery changed how scientists used to think about how fossils could be preserved, especially for this amount of time. It tells us that under the right conditions, soft tissues and cells could survive for millions of years. Conditions such as fast and rapid burial to protect them from scavengers and harsh weather, groundwater brings in minerals that harden the hard tissues, and the surrounding land turns into sedimentary rocks that preserve the fossils with it.

All of this knowledge gives us a new way to study ancient life, and we can only hope that there are more fossils that have been preserved for that long.

Read more: WIRED

What Can We Learn from This?

Finding preserved cells in these dinosaurs fossils helps our scientists find out more about how the dinosaurs lived and survived for that long. So why is that important? Well, would’nt you want your own species to also last 165 million years on this planet and more?

We believe that to predict and prepare for the future, we must understand what happened during the past and take to heart the lessons it brings and teaches us. Like learning and studying about dinosaur cells to learn about their biology and how related they are to the modern animals, including us.

Science Cafe: Dinosaurs: Rewriting the Rules of Fossilization

Author's Final Thoughts

The discovery of 68-million-year-old dinosaur cells is a celebratory moment for science. It shows us that we still have a lot to learn from this planet and life’s past. As we develop more of our technology, we can uncover more of the secrets we once thought were gone and impossible to find.

Hopefully, if we ever find out, we should use it to be better and last longer than them, so that we won’t just be another species that will be studied by the future ones on the planet.

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