In Cloning, Don’t Think Big
It seems strange to call anything “fresh” after 70 million years, especially in a youth-obsessed society that deems day-old bread worthy of deep discounting. But secreted within the immense thighbone of a prehistoric monster pried from the harsh badlands of remote Montana, scientists say they’ve found supple soft tissue. By all expectations, that stuff should have been long dried and gone.
According to Robert Lee Hotz’s riveting Times account, scientists found the surviving biological material accidentally within the goliath remains of an 18-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex that took three years to dig out. When a helicopter proved unable to lift just a hind leg, researchers broke the bone into pieces. In the core they found brownish oblong cells, elastic threads of veins and pliable dabs of red bone marrow. The 70-million-year-old material was so elastic that, when stretched, it snapped back more briskly than some human knees of, oh, about 55 years of age.
This finding suggests all kinds of lab- exciting opportunities. Until now, fossil geeks have been loath to break one-of-a-kind bones. But what might hide within any fossil and what might it reveal about life before humans decided they ruled the Earth?
Electron microscopes have already scanned these T. rex remains and found the cell structures virtually identical to those of a modern ostrich, which may earn those goofy creatures more respect during our next zoo visit.
Such discoveries are fascinating and raise in the minds of ignorant laymen the question of cloning. In the unlikely event that researchers could identify the actual genes of a 5-ton T. rex parked in Montana since before statehood, is this something to ponder? One short answer might be, “No.” The long answer might be, “Absolutely no.”
Yes, live T. rexes seeking live dinners would make great reality TV and save on special effects. But if memory serves, Africanized bees began as a safe lab experiment and now these vicious swarms forage pretty much anywhere they like. As wonderfully escapist as theme parks are, we witnessed in the “Jurassic Park” movies some pitfalls in trusting man-made security systems to confine large, escape-minded creatures craving more than popcorn.
Humans already confront flesh-eating bacteria. Let’s think twice about re-creating mighty 40-foot-tall flesh-eating carnivores that know nothing of the Geneva Convention and can keep body tissues supple for 70 million years without a single workout or glucosamine tablet.
