Dinosaur red blood cells: when chance is science – Why doctor?

The small world of paleontology is probably excited since this morning. And excitement that is sure to capture the experts (and fans!) Dinosaur does not exit on the screens of the fourth installment of Jurassic Park, but rather a very serious publication in the journal Nature Communications . As reported in the Swiss daily newspaper The Time, the London Imperial College scientists explain in an article yesterday that revealed red blood cells in dinosaur bones, old 75 million years! This discovery is surprising in view of the fragility of blood cells.

For now, it remains to prove that biological traces found by the British scientists are genuine red blood cells. But what is sure to inspire many scientists is how the researchers arrived at this discovery. They describe in their publication, and have not hidden the role of chance in their work. The word serendipity takes on its meaning. One imagines – like in a Hollywood film – scientists, on a dig site, preferably in a very hostile environment (desert, ice …), discover the remains of T. rex incredibly well preserved, and extract through advanced technologies precious cells.

In fact, as relates the Time , the team from Imperial College inherited old bone fragments of dinosaur specimens Cretaceous, the Natural History Museum of London did not hesitate to give them, given their poor condition! Analysis of these bits of bone showed the cells, according to scientists who have similarities with the red blood cells of the emu, ostrich ersatz, who lives in Australia. Again, we think it must have been very long and tedious to compare these dinosaurs cells with those of all existing species. But “if we compare” our “cells with those of the emu, it is not by choice, but simply because a colleague of emu blood kept in the refrigerator,” says Maidment in The Time Susannah.

This story, which found its epilogue once authenticated cells, is a wonderful example of the weight and importance of chance in scientific research. It touches here acclaimed discipline by the general public, much of which is fascinated by prehistory and those mythical animals that have become dinosaurs. But serendipity is the basis of many discoveries, often major, in very varied fields. Chance can not however work when scientists have the freedom and the time (thus the means!) To be surprised by an unplanned event in a research protocol …