+ Soon we may see, as part of the global anti-terrorism campaign, headlines such as NORTH KOREA CREATES LARGE ARSENAL OF T.REX DINOSAURS. SOUTH KOREA REQUESTS US PROTECTION! Countries that are sanctioned from nuclear weapons manufacture, or which cannot afford to create one, will no doubt be very interested in the latest scientific discovery that may soon lead to test-tube dinosaurs.

Conventional wisdom among paleontologists states that when dinosaurs died and became fossilized, soft tissues didn’t preserve – the bones were essentially transformed into “rocks” through a gradual replacement of all organic material by minerals. New research by a North Carolina State University paleontologist, however, could literally turn that theory inside out.
Dr. Mary Schweitzer, assistant professor of paleontology with a joint appointment at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, has succeeded in isolating soft tissue from the femur of a 68-million-year-old dinosaur. Not only is the tissue largely intact, it’s still transparent and pliable, and microscopic interior structures resembling blood vessels and even cells are still present.