Despite the fact that the bones of dinosaurs are often found in various parts of the Earth, they do not contain, as many might assume, the DNA of these creatures, since over many millions of years they have been petrified and turned into minerals. However, things have recently changed when experts have found the remains from which you can get a whole chain of deoxyribonucleic acid of an ancient pangolin.
And this is not about some harmless herbivorous fat man, but about the most ferocious predator that has ever walked on our planet. Remember how, in the science fiction movie Jurassic Park, Dr. Alan Grant was horrified when he learned that experts had cloned and successfully raised a real Tyrannosaurus? So, the staff of the University of North Carolina had the same opportunity.
During excavations in Montana, American paleontologists discovered the skeleton of a pregnant female Tyrannosaurus rex with a medullary bone in a rare condition. The age of the remains is about sixty-eight million years. Medullary bone was present in lizards and is present in birds. During the pregnancy of the female, various chemical processes take place in the bone: calcium accumulates in the internal spongy substance, which is necessary for the formation of the egg shell. However, when the breeding and gestation period passes, the bone becomes indistinguishable from the rest of the reptile's skeleton. Three to four weeks are enough for this.
The female, whose remains were found in Montana, was just pregnant at the time of death. Scientists studied its medullary bone and realized that it contains biological material that has not undergone mineralization. This means that, in theory, Americans could extract the DNA of a carnivorous dinosaur and clone it. Mary Schweizer, one of the study's authors, says: “We were very lucky to find the remains of a pregnant female Tyrannosaurus rex. If she hadn't carried eggs then, and it would have been another fossil suspended from a fishing line in some museum. Well, this is the most valuable and unique find."
Of course, scientists are not going to clone a fierce predator, much less create a real Jurassic Park. Nevertheless, the Americans intend to preserve and preserve the genetic material of the dinosaur for future generations. Who knows - what if our descendants need Tyrannosaurus rex DNA for some purpose.
