{"id":5780,"date":"2024-09-05T10:37:47","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T14:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/?p=5780"},"modified":"2024-09-16T09:14:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T13:14:38","slug":"close-to-the-bone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/2024\/close-to-the-bone\/","title":{"rendered":"Close to the Bone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

Paleontologist Lindsay Zanno is trying something different at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, where she\u2019s head of paleontology and directing Dueling Dinosaurs<\/a><\/em>, a research project and exhibit that opened at the museum in late April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the heart of that project are two ancient beasts, a tyrannosaur and a Triceratops<\/em> from 67 million years ago, seemingly in a tussle. The specimens were found in Montana in 2006. The Friends of the Museum purchased them in 2020 and gifted them to the museum in 2024. They\u2019ve been in storage waiting for this moment. It\u2019s only now that Zanno and her team of graduate students and scientists stretching across disciplines can work to interpret the specimens. Are they indeed fighting? What age is each? And what brought them to the moment where their lives intersected? Those are just some of the questions the Dueling Dinosaurs<\/em> team will be sussing out over the next several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lindsay
Lindsay Zanno stands in front of a replica block of the Dueling Dinosaurs<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And in answering those questions is where Zanno\u2019s \u201csomething different\u201d comes into play. Her team will be doing all of its research directly in front of museum patrons in the state-of-the-art SECU DinoLab, a specially designed lab that marks the first update to the museum in a decade. The museum raised $15 million for the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe whole point was to do all the science in front of the public, so it\u2019s been really difficult to have them here\u2009\u2014\u2009they\u2019ve been here for seven years now\u2009\u2014\u2009and not work on them,\u201d Zanno says. \u201cBut that was the fundamental goal from the beginning, to not do the research behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SECU DinoLab has the technology at the ready for CT scanning and digital imaging that is being done. Laboratory extraction arms stretch down to address the dust and ensure a safe environment. Big screens near the ceiling are displaying the scientists at work. But it\u2019s what the DinoLab doesn\u2019t have that\u2019s most important. There are simply no barriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fossils
The team in the SECU DinoLab gets to \u201cpiece together\u201d the story of the tyrannosaur and the Triceratops<\/em>. That\u2019s partly because parts of the two beasts sit separately in eight blocks or jackets made of plaster and burlap. Four of those are in the lab. From left to right: the tyrannosaur\u2019s body, the Triceratops<\/em>\u2019 hip, the Triceratops<\/em>\u2019 chest and the Triceratops<\/em>\u2019 skull. Visitors get a front-row seat to researchers working on the fossils. And to further underscore that experience, there is an overhead livestream viewers can access to monitor the work on each fossil by visiting the project\u2019s website.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe decided that we were going to try something really experimental,\u201d says Zanno, who\u2019s also an associate research professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. \u201cWe were just going to get rid of the glass altogether, and we were going to invite the public to come inside the lab space, walk into an authentic research lab, have an authentic experience and be able to talk to the scientific team in that space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd that, as far as I know, [has] never been done anywhere in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c. . . We were just going to get rid of the glass altogether, and we were going to invite the public to come inside the lab space, walk into an authentic research lab, have an authentic experience and be able to talk to the scientific team in that space. . .\u201d
\u2013Lindsay Zanno<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Specimens<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Zanno admits that she\u2019s not easily impressed. She and her teams have discovered more than a dozen different species of dinosaurs. \u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot of stuff,\u201d she says. \u201cBut fossils don\u2019t cease to amaze me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially Dueling Dinosaurs<\/em>\u2019 tyrannosaur and Triceratops<\/em>. Zanno praises them as \u201cincredibly well-preserved\u201d and points out that they both were buried in the Cretaceous period with all of their soft tissues intact, meaning each beast\u2019s bones are in place as if they were alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fossils now sit in pieces like a puzzle. For instance, the tyrannosaur\u2019s skull, its body, the Triceratops\u2019<\/em> skull and its hip and chest each sit atop a wooden cart in what is called a jacket, a casing of burlap, foil and plaster. And each rests in a bed of the original dirt from the Hell Creek Formation in the Montana badlands, where the fossils were discovered. All told, it\u2019s a combined 30,000 pounds of fossil and Hell Creek earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s essential, when you\u2019re a scientist working on fossils, that you have data that comes directly from when the fossils were discovered,\u201d says Zanno. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Story<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Zanno\u2019s team can look at the fossils and the earth around them to help answer several questions. First off, what is each? \u201cWe know that they are a tyrannosaur and a Triceratops<\/em>, but are they a rex<\/em>? Are they a Nanotyrannus<\/em>? Is it a Triceratops prorsus<\/em>? Or a Triceratops horridus<\/em>?\u201d asks Eric Lund, manager of the SECU DinoLab. \u201cThe other thing that we\u2019re trying to figure out is what brought these animals together. Were they indeed truly dueling as the moniker says? Or was one already dead and one came to scavenge? Or were they both dead and they washed into the same place?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the research, then, is to look at the specimens almost as a crime scene\u2009\u2014\u2009let\u2019s call it CSI: Cretaceous<\/em>\u2009\u2014and tell a story. That\u2019s a role Zanno readily accepts when asked if she thinks of herself as a storyteller. \u201cA hundred percent,\u201d she says. \u201cI think this is one of the things that\u2019s incredible about the university-museum partnership, [. . .] we\u2019re training the next generations of students at the university to become storytellers and to learn to translate science into a story so that it can be shared with the public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think this is one of the things that\u2019s incredible about the university-museum partnership, [\u2026] we\u2019re training the next generations of students at the university to become storytellers and to learn to translate science into a story so that it can be shared with the public.\u201d
\u2013Lindsay Zanno<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

All the members of Zanno\u2019s team, in fact, see storytelling as an integral part of their mission. It\u2019s a team whose members come from a diverse array of disciplines, something Zanno sees as most important about paleontologists: \u201cWe have chemists and biochemists. We have physicists. We have engineers. We have geologists. We have evolutionary biologists and ecologists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Paleontologist
Paleontologist Eric Lund runs a high-powered light across a fossil to look for things like feathers and skin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Histologist
Histologist Jennifer Ann\u00e9 sits beside the tyrannosaur\u2019s body.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

The SECU DinoLab features researchers who employ CT-scans and digital imaging into their work. Some use X-ray fluorescence to learn about the chemistry fingerprint in the fossils and surrounding rocks and plants. Some are experts in paleopathologies, the injuries and diseases present in fossils. And some run high intensity light with wavelengths of lasers across the specimens to find things like feather and skin in the fossil blocks not detected in regular light. For instance, no scientist has ever found a Triceratops<\/em> specimen with preserved skin impressions from the top of the frill before. Might that change with Dueling Dinosaurs<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n