Blood in dino bones

Photos (including SEM shots) and comments at Tyrannosaur morsels. Caption: Exploded T. rex vessel showing small round microstructures partially embedded in internal vessel walls.PZ quotes from the article and then comments:

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we demonstrate the retention of pliable soft-tissue blood vessels with contents that are capable of being liberated from the bone matrix, while still retaining their flexibility, resilience, original hollow nature, and three-dimensionality. Additionally, we can isolate three-dimensional osteocytes with internal cellular contents and intact, supple filipodia that float freely in solution. This T. rex also contains flexible and fibrillar bone matrices that retain elasticity. The unusual preservation of the originally organic matrix may be due in part to the dense mineralization of dinosaur bone, because a certain portion of the organic matrix within extant bone is intracrystalline and therefore extremely resistant to degradation. These factors, combined with as yet undetermined geochemical and environmental factors, presumably also contribute to the preservation of soft-tissue vessels. Because they have not been embedded or subjected to other chemical treatments, the cells and vessels are capable of being analyzed further for the persistence of molecular or other chemical information.

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So, basically, these cells were entombed in a thick mineral sarcophagus, protected from bacteria and other external insults. There have to have been other factors at playcells are full of enzymes that trigger a very thorough self-destruct sequence at deathso I'm definitely looking forward to the molecular analysis. Even if their form was preserved, I expect these cells to be denatured monomer soup on the inside.

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More analysis expected Real Soon Now at The Panda's Thumb, which appears to be down right now.

Decay rates, stratigraphy, fossil correlations, ...It's all one big, connected, consistent web of evidence. Including lots of evidence that decay rates haven't changed. Message 53:

What you quoted is an example of accountability in the fields of anthropology/paleontology. Professor Reiner Protsch von Zieten cheated and got caught .. by scientists.