For the first time, researchers have sequenced proteins from the long-extinct Tyrannosaurus rex, the mightiest of dinosaurs, leading them to the discovery that many of the molecules show a remarkable similarity to those of the humble chicken.The research provides the first molecular evidence for the theory that birds are the modern-day descendants of dinosaurs and overturns the long-held palaeontological assumption that delicate organic molecules such as DNA and proteins are destroyed during fossilisation. It also hints at the tantalising prospect that scientists may one day be able to emulate Jurassic Park by cloning a dinosaur.
Mary Schweitzer, a palaeontologist at North Carolina State University, led a team of researchers in analysing the 68-million-year-old leg bone of a T-rex recovered in 2003 in Montana. To her surprise, she found it still contained a matrix of collagen fibres, a protein that gives bone its structure and flexibility.