* 29 Journals, 57 Papers: Mark Armitage is on back-to-back RSR episodes! To date, 29 peer-reviewed science journals have published a total of 57 dinosaur biomaterial discoveries including Nature, Science, Cretaceous Research, Current Biology, Geology, Paleontology, Vertebrate Paleontology, Nature Communications, Scientific Reports, PLoS ONE, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and PNAS. The many dinosaur and other Mesozoic creatures yielding their original still-soft biological material include hadrosaur, titanosaur, the [ostrich-like] ornithomimosaur, Nodosaur, mosasaur, [bird-like] Anchiornis huxleyi, Triceratops, Lufengosaur, Archaeopteryx, and T. rex.
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In fossils from dinosaur-layer and "deeper", i.e. believed older, strata, researchers have discovered flexible and transparent blood vessels and cartilage, red blood cells, starch, many various proteins including beta-keratin, the microtubule building block tubulin, collagen, mollusk shell glycoprotein and dino eggshell peptides and chelating ligands, chitin, the cytoskeleton components actin, tropomyosin, and the related motor protein myosin, and hemoglobin, bone maintenance osteocyte cells, pigment including melanosomes, clearly-seen chromosome-like structures within cell nucleus, DNA-related histone proteins, and powerful evidence for DNA including positive results from multiple double-helix tests including IP and DAPI on fossils from various dinosaurs. And now, thanks to microscopist Mark Armitage, dinosaur nerve bundles! So we invite you to enjoy today's interview with Mark, see his cover story paper in the latest issue of Microscopy Today, a Cambridge University Press journal, and check out all our related programs at rsr.org/armitage!
And you may want to listen to the first of our two 2021 Armitage interviews...
Microscopy Today: Still-soft blood clots from six dinosaurs!
* Mark Armitage back on RSR: Real Science Radio host Bob Enyart interviews long-time friend Mark Armitage on his latest soft tissue discoveries published in a Cambridge University Press science journal, Microscopy Today. Bob welcomes Mark back to RSR after seven years during which time Armitage founded DSTRI, the Dinosaur Soft Tissue Research Institute. Here are three brief quotes from his paper on autofluorescence microscopy of dinosaur bones revealing blood clots. "dinosaur neurovascular bundles travel as a triad of veins, vessels, and nerve fibers, as in other vertebrates." And regarding the Schweitzer iron rescue device, "free iron was unavailable, at least in these... bones." And see all of our RSR programs with Mark listed at rsr.org/armitage.
