NATION IN BRIEF : SOUTH DAKOTA : Expert Says Dinosaur Fossil Is Damaged

The most complete Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever found--nicknamed Sue for the worker who found it--has been damaged by poor storage in a Rapid City, S.D., school, since federal officials seized it in May, an expert testified. Paleontologist Bob Bakker said the skeleton has been damaged by so-called pyrite disease, a condition in which the mineral breaks down and causes the stone that makes up fossilized bones to break. Bakker, of the University of Colorado, testified for the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, a company that paid $5,000 to dig up the 65-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation.