Evan Bernstein

So you just have to dig a little bit into it, and you already find out that this is, you know, is this a bait and switch, a pig and a poke, or whatever colloquialism you want to use.

Something's not right here.

Because some researchers are arguing that the tissue...

that they claim to have gotten this from is actually bacteria that colonized within a fossil instead of genuine dinosaur flesh.

And for this, we have to go back 20 years.

I don't know if we've covered this, guys, on SGU at the time.

This was right as we were starting.

20 years ago, researchers in Montana discovered parts of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.

The find drew more attention after one of the paleontologists announced that her team had identified soft tissue remains, including protein fragments inside the bones.

Up until then, scientists had largely believed such organic material couldn't survive for millions of years.

Yet many researchers remained skeptical.

Some argued that bacteria colonizing the bones may have created the structures that they identified.

And the debate over exactly what this team found continues today.

And this is the material.

This is the sequence.

The actual...

whatever you want to call it, that they found, that's what this handbag project relies.

It relies on the material from that particular discovery in Montana.

Do you guys remember that from about 20 years ago?

Because I don't.