DNA Today Video

Dino Protein is for the Birds

Organic material from a T. rex bone shows that birds are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs.

In echoes of Jurassic Park, organic material has for the first time been recovered from a dinosaur fossil. Protein fragments from a 68 million year old T. rex bone most closely match samples from a chicken, providing further evidence of the evolutionary relationship between dinosaurs and birds.

"Analyses of Soft Tissue from Tyrannosaurus rex Suggest the Presence of Protein" by Mary Higby Schweitzer and others, Science (volume 316), April 13, 2007, pages 277-280.

Duration: 3 minutes, 25 seconds

Posted: April 20, 2007

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