SOMETHING TO CHEW ON: Proteins extracted from dinosaur fossils could offer unprecedented insight into these animals’ biology. Their ability to survive the test of time is hotly debated.© ISTOCK.COM/KICKERS
Elena Schroeter is accustomed to being economical with her samples. A postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University, Schroeter analyzes pieces of ancient bone that have been preserved in the ground for millions of years—and in doing so, destroys them. So her collaborators rarely give her more than a gram or two of material to work with. “People don’t want you to grind up their dinosaurs,” she explains. “You have to learn how to do a lot with a little.”
But even just a pinch of dinosaur bone dust could help reveal the ancient animal’s secrets. In one recent project, for example, Schroeter and her advisor Mary Schweitzer extracted and analyzed collagen peptides from just 200 mg of an 80-million-year-old fossil of a Cretaceous-era herbivore, ...
