Q&A

What did Mary Schweitzer discover?

What did Mary Schweitzer discover?

Mary Higby Schweitzer is an American paleontologist at North Carolina State University, who led the groups that discovered the remains of blood cells in dinosaur fossils and later discovered soft tissue remains in the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen MOR 1125, as well as evidence that the specimen was a pregnant female when …

What did scientists find in the Trex bone?

Even so, scientists have found intact soft tissue in dinosaur bones before. The most famous case dates to 2005, when Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University found collagen fibers in the fossilized leg bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

What was the first thing that Schweitzer noticed about the T rex femur?

In 2005, paleontologists Mary Schweitzer and Jack Horner were stuffing a T. rex femur inside a too-small helicopter on their way home. They cracked the bone in half to make it fit, and Schweitzer noticed a goopy residue on the 65-million-year-old insides of the bone (see the Smithsonian story).

How do they know when dinosaurs lived?

There are two ways to determine the age of a dinosaur fossil. One is called relative geologic time, which involves deciding whether one dinosaur fossil is older or younger than another. Geologists then measure the proportion of parent and daughter atoms present in the ash crystals to determine the crystal’s age.

What is a dinosaur scientist called?

A paleontologist is a scientist who studies paleontology, learning about the forms of life that existed in former geologic periods, chiefly by studying fossils.

Where is Jack Horner now?

After his retirement, the MacMillan Foundation honored his work with a multi-million-dollar endowment for the John R. Horner Curator of Paleontology Chair at the museum. Horner currently is a lecturer and presidential fellow at Chapman University and a research associate at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum.

Did dinosaurs have cartilage?

The preserved dinosaur cells were probably embedded in cartilage, Schweitzer says, which lacks pores. “Fossilized, calcified cartilage may be an ideal place to search for exceptionally preserved biomolecules in other fossils, as this tissue may be less prone to contamination and internal decay than bone,” Evans says.

What came first dinosaurs or Adam and Eve?

Dinny’s new owners, pointing to the Book of Genesis, contend that most dinosaurs arrived on Earth the same day as Adam and Eve, some 6,000 years ago, and later marched two by two onto Noah’s Ark.

What was the name of Mary Schweitzer’s discovery?

That’s the title of an article in Discover magazine 1 about Dr Mary Schweitzer’s discoveries of fresh dinosaur tissue (which we’ve earlier reported on— Dinosaur bone blood cells found, Creation 16 (1):9, 1993; Sensational dinosaur blood report! 19 (4):42; 1997; Dino soft tissue find, 27 (4):7, 2005).

How did Schweitzer’s discovery affect the creationists?

The Discover article described how the fresh dino tissue had ‘electrified’ creationists, ‘who interpret Schweitzer’s findings as evidence that Earth is not nearly as old as scientists claim.

Who is Mary Higby Schweitzer and what did she do?

Mary Higby Schweitzer is a paleontologist at North Carolina State University, who lead the groups that discovered the remains of blood cells in dinosaur fossils and later discovered soft tissue remains in the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen MOR 1125, as well as evidence that the specimen was a gravid female when she died.

Where does Mary Schweitzer work as a paleontologist?

Defying conventional wisdom, Mary Schweitzer works to transform dinosaur paleontology into a molecular science. NORTHEASTERN MONTANA— The first day of Mary Schweitzer’s 2017 dinosaur hunt isn’t going well. The team has been searching under the high summer sun without success for the fossil-rich strata that braid through the arid rangeland here.