COBASOAL

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​Ateam has extracted what could be DNA molecules from a 125-million-year-old fossil dinosaur, according to a study published last month (September 24) in Communications Biology. But other experts have voiced caution or outright skepticism about the findings.

Gizmodo reports the oldest sequenced DNA belongs to a million-year-old woolly mammoth. DNA is a relatively fragile molecule, and dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, so the idea of sequencing DNA from these ancient creatures has so far remained science fiction.

In the new study, paleontologists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature extracted and decalcified femur cartilage from a 125-million-year-old Caudipteryx dinosaur, which lived in the Jehol Biota—in what is now the coastal province of Liaoning in northeast China—during the Early Cretaceous period.

According to a news release from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the femur cells contained preserved nuclei and chromatin fragments that could potentially hold preserved dinosaur DNA. The scientists discovered this by staining the extracted cells with hematoxylin, a chemical that binds to cell nuclei. The team also compared the Caudipteryx cartilage staining to that of a chicken cartilage sample, noting the fossil's staining resembled the chicken's visible nuclei and chromatin material. IVPP’s Li Zhiheng, a coauthor on the paper, explains in the statement that “Fossil preservation in the Jehol Biota was exceptional due to fine volcanic ashes that entombed the carcasses and preserved them down to the cellular level.” The research paper suggests that nuclear cell components are preserved particularly effectively in fossilized cartilage tissue compared to other tissue types.

​one day brown dino and green dino met in the market. They bought a bunch of brocolly. Brown dino asked that...