Name: Hints of fossil DNA discovered in dinosaur skull
Brand: nationalgeographic.com
SKU: nationalgeographic-com-30
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Hints of fossil DNA discovered in dinosaur skull

preview

More than 70 million years ago in what's now Montana, the plant-eatinghadrosaur Hypacrosaurus stebingeri roamed. A new study of H. stebingerinestlings has found fossils of dividing cells, nuclei, and chromosomes—aswell as tantalizing hints of preserved DNA.March 3, 2020For billions of years, DNA has served as life’s information molecule,containing instructions for how and when to build the proteins of livingorganisms. But how long can that biological information survive? In a provocativenew study, an international team of researchers reveals dinosaur fossilsthat are so well preserved, some contain the outlines of cells—and structuresthat might have formed from the dinosaurs’ original DNA.The ,published last week in National Science Review, takes a close lookat two juvenile skull bones from the hadrosaur Hypacrosaurus stebingeri,a plant-eating dinosaur that lived in what’s now Montana about 75 millionyears ago.Inside the tiny fossils, researchers can see what appear to be cells,some frozen in the process of dividing. Others contain darkened balls thatlook just like nuclei, the cellular structures that store DNA. And onecell even seems to contain dark, tangled coils that resemble chromosomes,the condensed strands of proteins and DNA that form during cell division.“It’s a sub-cellular level of preservation that’s never been reportedbefore in a vertebrate,” says ,a postdoctoral researcher at China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontologyand Paleoanthropology and lead author of the new study.To test the fossilized material, the researchers applied stains that bind to DNA in living cells to the bits of dinosaur skull. These stains stuck to particular spots within the fossil cells, making them glow in fluorescent red and blue. As far as the researchers can tell, whatever the stains are binding toYou are going to nationalgeographic.com/tv and different terms of useand privacy policy will apply.Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society.Copyright © 2015-2022 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reservedforfull access to read stories from National Geographic.

More than 70 million years ago in what's now Montana, the plant-eatinghadrosaur Hypacrosaurus stebingeri roamed. A new study of H. stebingerinestlings has found fossils of dividing cells, nuclei, and chromosomes—aswell as tantalizing hints of preserved DNA.March 3, 2020For billions of years, DNA has served as life’s information molecule,containing instructions for how and when to build the proteins of livingorganisms. But how long can that biological information survive? In a provocativenew study, an international team of researchers reveals dinosaur fossilsthat are so well preserved, some...

public

Science journalist/consultant + freelance correspondent  @NewsfromScience . Bylines  @washingtonpost   @techreview  and elsewhere. Former  @NatGeo  staff writer.

Michael Greshko

Taking our understanding and awareness of the world further for more than 135 years

nationalgeographic.com

Credible

Speculation

Anecdotal Evidence

Generalization

Stacking the Deck

Appeal to Authority

Straw Man

Slippery Slope

Emotional Appeal

Red Herring

False Dilemma

Illogical

Moral Equivalency

Ad Hominem

Correlation w/o Causation

Semantics

Begging the Question

Faulty Analogy

Non Sequitur

Bandwagon

Dogmatism

Failing Occam's Razor

Biased

Pure Opinion

Hit Piece

Racial Bias

National Bias

Religious Bias

Financial Incentive

Political Agenda

Gender Bias

Misused Image/Video

Study Misinterpreted

Mistake

Misused Term

Science Misrepresented

Factual Error

Satire

Surface Level

Lack of Reliable Sources

Sensational

Not Credible

Investigative

Balanced

Well Sourced

Great Context

sports

entertainment

U.S.

international

business

technology

science

culture

politics

media

health

Hints of fossil DNA discovered in dinosaur skull

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS