I should preface this post with essential personal information: I like dinosaurs, and any news about new dinosaur fossils pretty much takes me right back to third grade, when I was dead-set on becoming a paleontologist. That being said, you can imagine my reaction to the news that soft tissue, including preserved cells, has been recovered from Tyrannosaurus rex. The discovery could shed light on the controversy of whether or not dinosaurs were warm-blooded, as well as the evolutionary relationship between dinosaurs and contemporary species.

For those who wonder how soft tissue like this could be preserved for 65 million years, the answer seems to be that the fossilized bone surrounding the tissue isolates the tissue from bacteria which would usually break it down after death. There are obviously more factors involved, but I encourage you to check out the Pharyngula post linked above for more details (and pictures!).

As for cloning – which I have no doubt will be on the minds of little kids everywhere – don’t count on it; recovering DNA from the tissue is extremely unlikely, let alone obtaining the complete genome. It’s important to remember that Michael Crichton only writes fiction.