Navigation Links
Next good dinosaur news likely to come from small packages

Dinosaurs seem bigger than life ?big bones, big mysteries. So it's a delicious irony that the next big answers about dinosaurs may come from small ?very small ?remains.

"Molecules are fossils, too," said Michigan State University zoologist Peggy Ostrom. "We've shown that proteins survive in very old fossils, and proteins can tell us about diseases, about where prehistoric animals fit in the food chain, what they ate and who they are related to."



Ostrom works in a budding area known as paleoproteomics. Like conventional paleontologists, the search is to reveal the history of life on Earth. But tacking on proteomics means scrutinizing life at a molecular level ?life that existed thousands of years ago.

Ostrom's work has spanned from examining organic matter in meteorites to reconstructing who eats who in the food web from the tropics to the arctic. The trail is laid by stubbornly durable molecules. She uses mass spectrometry, an analytical technique that determines what molecules are present.

Molecules may be tiny, but they can be tough, Ostrom said. The plant that a mastodon munched some 10,000 years ago disperses through the animal's body, sprinkling molecules of itself through tissue and hair -- vivid scientific evidence of the adage "you are what you eat."

"It just takes two or three pinches o f bone powder to find molecular evidence," Ostrom said. "We have protein sequences from material believed to be in range of half a million years old. We are carefully working our way back in time."




Source:Michigan State University

Related biology news :

1. Revueltosaurus skeleton unearthed at Petrified Forest upsets dinosaur tale
2. Study: Predatory dinosaurs had bird-like pulmonary system
3. Skull study sheds light on dinosaur diversity
4. U. of Colorado researcher identifies tracks of swimming dinosaur in Wyoming
5. Newly discovered birdlike dinosaur is oldest raptor ever found in South America
6. Did feathered dinosaurs exist?
7. Fossil find: Godzilla crocodile had head of a dinosaur, fins like a fish
8. The worlds deepest dinosaur finding - 2256 metres below the seabed
9. FSU biologist says new dinosaur is oldest cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex
11. Large dinosaurs were extremely hot in their day, UF study finds
Post Your Comments:

Breaking Biology News(10 mins):
Breaking Biology Technology: