Dinosaur DNA? Science Gets Closer

A baby duckbill dinosaur died near a river 75 million years ago. Decades after famed paleontologist Jack Horner uncovered the fossils in Montana’s Two Medicine Formation, researchers took a closer look at microscopic slices of the skull—and discovered something astonishing: fossilized cartilage cells that appear to preserve structures resembling a nucleus and even chromosomes. Could traces of dinosaur DNA really survive for millions of years? It’s just one of the many eye-opening discoveries explored in Curiosity Stream’s Breakthrough series, which celebrated its 100th episode last week with Telescopes: The Truth Is Out There. Watch this episode and explore the entire Breakthrough collection on Curiosity Stream.