Jurassic Park around the corner? 75-million-year-old dinosaur blood and collagen discovered in fossil fragments

Red blood cells and collagen fibres in the fossilised remains of dinosaurs that lived 75 million years ago.

The finding suggests that scores of dinosaur fossils in museums around the world could retain soft tissues, and with it the answers to major questions about dinosaur physiology and evolution. More speculatively, it has made scientists ponder whether dinosaur DNA might also survive.

(a) Amorphous carbon-rich material (red) surrounded by dense material (green). Scale bar, 5 μm. (b) Erythrocyte-like structures composed of carbon surrounded by cement. Scale bar, 1 μm. For comparison, fixed blood from an emu (Dromaius) is shown in Supplementary Fig. 2c, d. Fibrous structures. Scale bar, 5 μm in (c) and 1 μm in (d). Nature communication

Jurassic Park is just around the corner!

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/09/75-million-year-old-dinosaur-blood-and-collagen-discovered-in-fossil-fragments

and

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150609/ncomms8352/full/ncomms8352.html

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