TPO 24

In this set of material, the reading and the lecture discuss the possibility of the existence of Tyrannosaurus rex’s tissue in a 70-million-year-old founded fossil. Although the passage provides three pieces of evidence for existing of the actual tissues of the animal, the speaker refutes this idea through several reasons, which I will describe in this report.

First, the passage points out that the presence of many small branching channels inside bones would show blood vessels. The lecturer, in contrast, rejects this by claiming that these channels are not necessary blood vessels. When animals died, bacterial colonized inside the bones and hollows of the bones. These bacteria make a soft, flexible organic substance inside the channels. So, these traces may belong to the bacteria.

Furthermore, the passage states that examination of bones showed the presence of spheres that would be remains of red blood cells. However, the professor argues that scientists these reddish spheres have been found from other fossils found in the same place. But, these animals did not have any red cells when they lived. So, these spheres do not show the blood cells. They could be reddish mineral.

Finally, although the passage says that bones of the Tyrannosaurus rex’s have collagen, which a fibrous protein that is the main component of living bone tissue. The speaker disagrees by mentioning that collagen could not last more than a thousand years, and finding collagen in a 70-million-year-old fossil is improbable. Thus, these collagens may remain from earlier resources like researchers who handling and moving fossils, and it exists in the human’s tissue cells.