Research news: Scientists may have been fossil fooled

The News:
Scientists may have been fossil fooled
Experts say a substance found in T. rex bones was naturally occurring slime, not dino tissue.
By Wendy Hansen Los Angeles Times
Article Last Updated: 07/30/2008 08:28:50 PM MDT
Soft, organic material discovered inside a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil that scientists believed was 70 million-year-old dinosaur tissue may have been nothing more than ordinary slime, scientists said in a study published Wednesday.
Researchers reported in the online journal PLoS ONE that bacterial colonies infiltrating tiny cavities in the bones long after the dinosaurs died may have naturally molded into shapes resembling the tissues they replaced.
Carbon dating performed on one sample showed that the tissuelike material was modern, circa 1960.
After further examination with light and electron microscopy, researchers concluded that the substances were most likely remnants of biofilms, or layers of bacterial cells and the sticky molecules they secrete.
The finding sparked a strong response from the researchers who originally claimed to have found ancient dinosaur tissue.
Mary Schweitzer, the biologist from North Carolina State University who found the original T. rex "tissue," said in a prepared statement that errors in the current study "seem to underlie a fundamental misunderstanding of our work, our data and our interpretations." Read on...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal PLoS ONE.