In Brief
Viruses Discovered in Dinosaurs
Researchers in Berlin were able to present the hitherto oldest proof of the existence of viruses, which they had found in a 150-million-year-old vertebra of Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki. During its lifetime, this plant eating dinosaur from Tendaguru, Tanzania, suffered from a bone disease caused by a virus that is similar to measles and hitherto was known to affect only humans and primates. The discovery was made by a team of palaeontologists from the National History Museum Berlin in cooperation with scientists from the Charité and from the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy (HZB).
Amongst other methods employed in the three-dimensional examination of the vertebra, Dr Ingo Manke and his team at the HZB's Institute of Applied Materials used the synchrotron holotomography process, which they had created at the HZB's electron storage ring BESSY II. In the tomographic image, the fossil vertebra displays the characteristic radiologic Paget's disease pattern: Breakdown of bone in the inner area of the vertebra and formation of bone tissue in the outer area resulting in a thickening of the outer layer.
