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InvisibleDisco Cat
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Mummified dinosaur found
    #7787354 - 12/21/07 09:59 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Rare Mummified Dinosaur Unearthed: Contains Skin, and Maybe Organs, Muscle

Scientists on Monday announced the discovery of what appears to be the world's most intact dinosaur mummy: a 67-million-year-old plant-eater that contains fossilized bones and skin tissue, and possibly muscle and organs.

Preserved by a natural fluke of time and chemistry, the four-ton mummified hadrosaur, a duck-billed herbivore common to North America, could reshape the understanding of dinosaurs and their habitat, its finders say.

"There is no doubt about it that this dinosaur is a very, very significant find," said Tyler Lyson, a graduate student in geology at Yale University who discovered the dinosaur in North Dakota.

"To say we are excited would be an understatement," said Phil Manning, a paleontologist at England's University of Manchester who is leading the examination. "When I first saw it in the field, (I thought) 'Shiiiit, that's a really well preserved dinosaur.' It has the potential to be a top-10 dinosaur, globally."

Nicknamed Dakota, the hadrosaur is one of only five naturally preserved dinosaur mummies ever discovered. Unlike previous dinosaur mummies, which typically involve skin impressions pressed into bones, Dakota's entire skin envelope appears to remain largely intact.

"The skin has been mineralized," said Manning. "It is an actual three-dimensional structure, backfilled with sediment."

The fidelity of the envelope, he said, raises the possibility that Dakota could contain other soft-tissue remnants, including muscles and organs.

Then-16-year-old Lyson was fossil-hunting in 1999 in the Hell Creek Formation badlands of North Dakota when he first spotted the dinosaur's bone-like protrusion from a hill. In 2004, after Lyson returned to begin excavating the fossil and discovered skin remnants, a friend studying at the University of Manchester alerted Manning, who had the experience and resources to organize a more cautious excavation.

Only after the body and a chunk of the hillside was moved to a lab did the scientists realize the extent of the discovery. "On vast areas of the tail and body," Manning said, "there was what looked to be a three-dimensional skin envelope, in the same way as a sock around your foot -- which did not make any sense at all."

Manning brought on dozens of scientists and engineers -- in disciplines ranging from computer science to organic chemistry and physics -- to investigate every aspect of the find using state-of-the-art tools.

"Up until Phil showed me this dinosaur," said Roy Wogelius, a geochemist from the University of Manchester studying the soil surrounding Dakota, "I had no interest in dinosaurs. As soon as I saw this specimen, I was fascinated."

In North Dakota, the researchers used Light Detection and Ranging equipment (LiDAR) to develop a three-dimensional topographical map of the area where Dakota died. Manning speculated that the dinosaur collapsed in a riverbed during the late Cretaceous Period and was rapidly buried in mineral-rich wet sand, preventing bacteria from devouring all of its tissue. "There was active-enough chemistry in the sediments that the decay process didn't occur as quickly as the mineralization process," he said. "It was a perfect chemical soup."

After examining the dinosaur at a local lab, the scientists encased it and the remaining surrounding soil in plaster and hauled it by truck to a Boeing research center in Canoga Park, California, north of Los Angeles. There, Boeing volunteered the world's largest computerized tomography, or CT, scanner, originally built by NASA to scan space shuttle parts for flaws. At 8,000 pounds, the fossil became the largest object ever scanned at high resolution. The researchers are using the data to survey the body's interior before chipping away further on the fossil. "The CT scan is like a roadmap," said Manning. "It will help us recover the rest of the animal more easily and efficiently."

The first significant findings from the dinosaur, currently under review at a major scientific journal, will describe the unique chemical balance that preserved the fossil. The body, meanwhile, remains on the Boeing scanner, as Manning and his colleagues sift through terabytes of data. So far, they have determined that the hadrosaur's hindquarters are 25 percent larger than previously thought for the species, meaning that it could run up to 28 mph -- faster than previously estimated. They have also discovered that the specimen's vertebrae, which museums commonly stack together, are actually spaced 10 millimeters apart. The result, Manning said, implies that scientists may have been underestimating the size of hadrosaurs and other dinosaurs.

The National Geographic Channel, which helped fund the research, will recount the saga of Dakota's discovery in a documentary, Dino Autopsy, Sunday, Dec. 9, at 9 p.m. EST. Manning is also publishing a book, Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs, describing the fossil and its history. Although there are a lot of scientists involved in the project, Lyson and Manning have not yet allowed experts outside the project to assess the mummified dinosaur.

But the scientific findings from the specimen may take decades to exhaust. "I'm 40 years old now," Manning said. "If I live till 80 I think I'll still be at the tip of the iceberg."


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InvisibleJackthaTripper
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Re: Mummified dinosaur found [Re: Disco Cat]
    #7787356 - 12/21/07 10:00 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Cool :cool:


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Come on breakthrough with me...such wonders terrify the soul...it's real no need to question...knowledge infiltrates the host


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InvisibleDisco Cat
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Re: Mummified dinosaur found [Re: Disco Cat]
    #7787360 - 12/21/07 10:01 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Spectacular Mummified Dinosaur Found in North Dakota

WASHINGTON — One of the most complete dinosaur mummies ever found is revealing secrets locked away for millions of years, bringing researchers as close as they will ever get to touching a live dino.

The fossilized duckbilled hadrosaur is so well preserved that scientists have been able to calculate its muscle mass and learn that it was more muscular than thought, probably giving it the ability to outrun predators such as Tyrannosaurus rex.

While they call it a mummy, the dinosaur is not really preserved as King Tut was. The dinosaur body has been fossilized into stone.

Unlike the collections of bones found in museums, this hadrosaur came complete with skin, ligaments, tendons and possibly some internal organs, according to researchers.

The study is not yet complete, but scientists have concluded that hadrosaurs were bigger — 3½ tons and up to 40 feet long — and stronger than had been known, were quick and flexible and had skin with scales that may have been striped.

"Oh, the skin is wonderful," paleontologist Phillip Manning of Manchester University in England rhapsodized, admitting to a "glazed look in my eye."

"It's unbelievable when you look at it for the first time," he said in a telephone interview. "There is depth and structure to the skin. The level of detail expressed in the skin is just breathtaking."

Manning said there is a pattern of banding to the larger and smaller scales on the skin. Because it has been fossilized researchers do not know the skin color. Looking at it in monochrome shows a striped pattern.

He notes that in modern reptiles, such a pattern is often associated with color change.

The fossil was found in 1999 in North Dakota and now is nicknamed "Dakota." It is being analyzed in the world's largest CT scanner, operated by the Boeing Co. The machine usually is used for space shuttle engines and other large objects.

Researchers hope the technology will help them learn more about the fossilized insides of the creature.

"It's a definite case of watch this space," Manning said. "We are trying to be very conservative, very careful."

But they have learned enough so far to produce two books and a television program. The TV special, "Dino Autopsy," will air on the National Geographic channel Dec. 9. National Geographic Society partly funded the research.

A children's book, "DinoMummy: The Life, Death, and Discovery of Dakota, a Dinosaur From Hell Creek," goes on sale Tuesday and an adult book, "Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs: Soft Tissues and Hard Science," will be available in January.

Soft parts of dead animals normally decompose rapidly after death. Because of chemical conditions where this animal died, fossilization — replacement of tissues by minerals — took place faster than the decomposition, leaving mineralized portions of the tissue.

That does not mean DNA, the building blocks of life, can be recovered, Manning said. Some has been recovered from frozen mammoths up to 1 million years old, he said.

At the age of this dinosaur, 65 million to 67 million years old, "the chance of finding DNA is remote," he said.

A Manchester colleague, Roy Wogelius, who also worked on the dinosaur, said "one thing that we are very confident of is that we do have some organic molecular breakdown products present."

That look at chemicals associated with the animal is still research in progress.

Matthew Carrano, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said he could not comment in detail about the find because he had not seen the research.

But, he added, "Any time we can get a glimpse of the soft anatomy of a dinosaur, that's significant."

The findings from Dakota may cause museums to rethink their dinosaur displays.

Most dinosaur skeletons in museums, for example, show the vertebrae right next to one another. The researchers looking at Dakota found a gap of about a centimeter — about 0.4 inch — between each one.

That indicates there may have been a disk or other material between them, allowing more flexibility and meaning the animal was actually longer than what is shown in a museum. On large animals, adding the space could make them a yard longer or more, Manning said.

Because ligaments and tendons were preserved, as well as other parts of Dakota, researchers could to calculate its muscle mass, showing it was stronger and potentially faster than had been known.

They estimated the hadrosaur's top speed at about 28 miles per hour, 10 mph faster than the giant T. Rex is thought to have been able to run.

"It's very logical, though, that a hadrosaur could run faster than a T. rex. It's a major prey animal and it doesn't have big horns on its head like triceratops. Hadrosaurs didn't have much in the way of defense systems, so they probably relied on fleet of foot," Manning said.

Dakota was discovered by Tyler Lyson, then a teenager who liked hunting for fossils on his family ranch.

Lyson, who is currently working on his doctorate degree in paleontology at Yale University, founded the Marmarth Research Foundation, an organization dedicated to the excavation, preservation and study of dinosaurs.

----------------------------------------------------------------





Too bad they didn't find a cooler dinosaur than a Hadrosaur, but awesome nontheless.


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Mummified dinosaur found [Re: Disco Cat]
    #7788430 - 12/22/07 10:09 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

The fidelity of the envelope, he said, raises the possibility that Dakota could contain other soft-tissue remnants, including muscles and organs.





OK that's it. Clone the beastie and bring back the Hadrosaur.





what do you say guys?

.
Clone the Hadrosaur or leave it be?
You may choose only one


Votes accepted from (12/22/07 10:09 AM) to (No end specified)
You must vote before you can view the results of this poll



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InvisiblelIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
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Registered: 12/16/04
Posts: 11,123
Loc: Texas
Re: Mummified dinosaur found [Re: Disco Cat]
    #7788555 - 12/22/07 10:53 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

yeah there was an hour long special on the national geographic channel on this, on dec 9th called "Dinosaur Autopsy"

it was extremely interesting


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OfflineMadtowntripper
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Re: Mummified dinosaur found [Re: lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl]
    #7792763 - 12/23/07 02:32 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

I whole-heartedly believe we'll be cloning extinct animals in the not extremely distant future.

It should be pretty awesome.


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After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action.  If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.  - Ernest Hemingway

If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it.  In the law courts, in business, in government.  There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.    -Cormac MacCarthy

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.  - Aeschylus


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Mummified dinosaur found [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7792936 - 12/23/07 03:37 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

I whole-heartedly believe we'll be cloning extinct animals in the not extremely distant future.




This isn't a drop of dinosaur blood in amber, this is pounds and pounds of mummified tissue of one and the same animal.

I hope it's a female animal, cause that's all you need basically. With a nifty trick she could lay eggs containing clones of herself.

They are herbivores so that curbs a lot of ethical and practical issues.

If it becomes a Jurassic Park kinda disaster, those 10mg Carfentanil darts are coming home with me :yesnod:



And why on earth haven't we cloned the Woolly Mammoth yet? I mean, wtf. We chisel em out of the ice regularly with the fur still on their backs, and an African elephant would be ideal to get the first ones into this world. Then - set em loose in Russia, Canada and similar areas! We drove em into extinction, it's only fair that we bring em back.


--------------------
Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here


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InvisibleDisco Cat
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Re: Mummified dinosaur found [Re: Asante]
    #7793407 - 12/23/07 06:14 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

We'd better start cloning these things as soon as we can, then we can get one with the dinosaur wars!!! Sweeeet. When the topic of immorality comes up, I have to say that being cloned due to human excitement (if not compassion for the creature) beats not existing at all.

I've also been wondering why the hell nobody's cloned a mammoth yet, but it looks like they may be on the way.


Click for full article:
Woolly Mammoth Resurrection, "Jurassic Park" Planned

Excerpt:

A team of Japanese genetic scientists aims to bring woolly mammoths back to life and create a Jurassic Park-style refuge for resurrected species. The effort has garnered new attention as a frozen mammoth is drawing crowds at the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi, Japan (see photo).

The team of scientists, which is not associated with the exhibit, wants to do more than just put a carcass on display. They aim to revive the Ice Age plant-eaters, 10,000 years after they went extinct.

...

Viable DNA?

The scientists with the Mammoth Creation Project are hoping to find a mammoth that is sufficiently well preserved in the ice to enable them to extract sperm DNA from the frozen remains.

They will then inject the sperm DNA into a female elephant, the mammoth's modern-day counterpart. By repeating the procedure with offspring, scientists say, they could produce a creature that is 88 percent mammoth within 50 years.

"This is possible with modern technology we already have," said Akira Iritani, who is chairman of the genetic engineering department at Kinki University in Japan and a member of the Mammoth Creation Project.


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OfflineRuNE
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Re: Mummified dinosaur found [Re: Asante]
    #7796732 - 12/24/07 09:41 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

To be honest, with corporate America in mind, if we got cloning hadrosaurs down to an art, they would be the next newest thing on the menu.

That thing could feed like a hundred people.  :lol:


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Mummified dinosaur found [Re: RuNE]
    #7797715 - 12/25/07 09:04 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

I've been thinking the same thing. It's a herbivore. If it is fairly indiscriminate in its feeding habits, it might well make a new breed of livestock raised for meat.

About the mammoth... Why settle for a fractional mammoth when you can have the real deal? Empty out an elephant's egg cell, and fill it with the contents of an X and a Y sperm cell off your mammoth. Then you have purebred mammoths from day 1.

Leave it to the Japanese to create a real life jurassic park. If it's at all possible they'll find a way:thumbup:


--------------------
Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here


Edited by Asante (12/25/07 09:13 AM)


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Invisiblefushock
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Re: Mummified dinosaur found [Re: Disco Cat]
    #7799335 - 12/25/07 08:58 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

To be honest, the only thing I can think about right now is what the thing must taste like. I wonder if this dino meat is still, or ever way, eatable.


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