Tpo24

According to the passage, scientists are researching animal tissues on fossils, but investigating actual animal tissues is difficult because of the actual tissues replaced by minerals. A newfound t-rex fossil made scientists excited because they are thinking by some evidence that this fossil can contain natural tissues. The professor is approaching skeptical to these evidences and presents examples to refute them.

First of all, the author says an organic and soft substance found in the hollows of t-rex’s leg bone could be blood vessels. However, the lecturer disagrees that it may be another compound and gives, for example, bacterias. Moist and blood-filled hollows are a good place for bacterial colonization. Bacteria that lived inside the bone seems like soft tissue.

Second, the text claims the reddish minerals are iron-filled areas that indicate blood cells in the fossil because blood cells contain iron. In contrast, the professor dismisses that claim, and she thinks these irons could be part of primitive organisms settled in animals’ bones. Microscopic analyses show this mineral has different origins.

Furthermore, the author says something explored in the fossils could be collagen. But on the other hand, the lecture refutes this because T-rex fossil is 70-million years old and the collagen can not last longer than 100.000 years. Even though it was collagen, this substance can not belong to the T-rex, it could be a human’s collagen.