Australian Science Illustrated – Issue 51 2017

SCIENCE UPDATE

12 | SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED

Proteins found in 80-million-year-old fossil

PALAEONTOLOGY Scientists from North

Carolina State University in the US have

managed to find and extract proteins from a

80-million-year-old thighbone belonging to

the herbivorous duck-billed dinosaur

Brachylophosaurus canadensis. Finding

proteins in dinosaur bones is a scientific

milestone, and the discovery has attracted

attention from palaeontologists around the

world, paving the way for a brand new era

within fossil research. The ancient proteins,

which provide excellent clues of the past, will

allow scientists to place extinct species more

accurately on the family tree of life and to map

out their relationship with modern animals

such as birds and alligators.

53,000,000,

pixels – is the level of detail of pictures taken by NASA with new camera

technology, allowing Mars rovers to shoot sharp panoramic pictures.

Scientists have discovered the
collagen protein in a 80-million-
MARY SCHWEITZER/NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY year-old dinosaur bone.

NASA

SHUTTERSTOCK

SHOOTING STAR – Saturn

Probe takes extreme close-up of Saturn’s rings

NASA’s Cassini probe has taken a series of spectacular close-ups, which bring us closer

to Saturn’s unique rings than ever before, revealing unknown details about the rings,

which consist of billions of ice particles. This picture was taken from a distance of 51,000 km.

Seals can sleep

underwater. Gravity

makes a sleeping seal sink, but

after about 10 minutes, it

returns to the surface to

breathe without waking up.

The common seal is a

gifted tracker. The seal

has 40-50 super sensitive

whiskers on each side of its

muzzle. Each whisker has

about 1,500 nerves in the root

• 10 times more than cats.

Seal milk has high fat

content (50%). In the

four weeks of infancy when

seal pips breast-feed, they

gain as much as 800-900 g a

day. A breast-feeding human

gains about 35 g per day.

And speaking of seals...

NEWS FLASH!

Whiskers give seals

super senses. The

common seal can spot a

flounder, even when it is

lying still under the sand.

The animal’s whiskers

pick up the tiny weak

water currents produced

by the fish’s gills.

BY THE WAY

BODY BUILDING BLOCKS

Proteins, which make up a vital

part of all organisms, are a kind

of biological building blocks.

Proteins are considerably

more durable than DNA.

The oldest DNA found by

scientists in a bone is only

700,000 years old.

COLLAGEN