Re: dino dna

[stssram@st.unocal.com (Bob Myers)]

On Nov 21, 12:36, Stan Friesen wrote:
} Subject: Re: dino dna
> >From dinosaur@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu Sun Nov 20 10:05:07 1994
>  > even if the bone proves to be dinosaurian, that is no guarantee that dna
>  > is.  in mammalian bone only a few months defleshed, we have found live
>  > (and thriving) algae, not to mention fungi, bacteria, and insect larvae
>  > reported by others.  unless you can demonstrate that dna is from tissues
>  > associated with the bone, the dna could derive from later parasites 
> associated
>  > with the bone as it fossilized.
> 
> The claim is that the DNA comes from red blood cells in the bone.
> If the cells really are blood cells, that would be fairly conclusive.
> 
>-- End of excerpt from Stan Friesen

Wait a minute - I think we're talking about 2 separate reports of dinosaur
DNA recovery.  Ron Baalke posted a message (excerpted below) about work at
Brigham Young University that does not seem to be connected with Horner's
work with T. rex blood cell DNA.  

> In a report in Friday's issue of the journal Science, Woodward said he had
> isolated DNA molecules from pieces of two ancient bones and produced nine
> readable sequences from a strand of DNA for a particular gene. It is the first
> report to be published in an authoritative journal of an apparent success in
> isolating what is presumably dinosaur DNA.

> The bone fragments, possibly from a limb bone and a rib of a large animal, 
> were
> found in a coal mine in eastern Utah. They were embedded in rock that is
> associated with dinosaur fossils when found in other areas. But the fragments
> were too small to be identified definitely as dinosaurian.


-- 
Bob Myers                               Unocal Information Systems Support
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