Oops; no soaking required:
“If this is not already enough, Schweitzer recently made an even more startling discovery. About three years ago (2002) she and her team had to divide a very large T. rex thigh bone in order to transport it on a helicopter. When the bone was opened flexible soft tissue “meat” was found inside. This is incredible because this bone was supposed to be some 68 million years old. Microscopic examination revealed fine delicate blood vessels with what appear to be intact red blood cells and other type of cells like osteocytes - which are bone forming cells. These vessels were still soft, translucent, and flexible. Subsequent examination of other previously excavated T. rex bones from this and other areas have also shown non-fossilized soft tissue preservation in most instances.54
This find calls into question not only the nature of the fossilization process, but also the age of these fossils. How such soft tissue preservation and detail could be realized after 68 million years is more than miraculous - - It is unbelievable! Schweitzer herself comments that, “We may not really know as much about how fossils are preserved as we think.” 54 Now, if that is not an understatement I’m not sure what is.”
http://www.detectingdesign.com/fossilrecord.html
Hi. First time poster, long time lurker.
Soaking was required.
You’re talking about the same bone as BroJoeK. They cracked open a T.Rex fossil (from a T.Rex named Bob) because it was too heavy for the helicopter. But the article you cited makes it seem like they found wet meat inside as soon as it split. That’s not exactly what happened.
What happened was, they changed the usefulness of the fossil. It was no longer a “show” bone. So they sent the Dr. Schweitzer, who found microscopic traces of bone. Then she soaked it in an acid they dissolves rock, and found blood cells and scraps of collagen.
There are quite a few articles on this, but I’ll cite the one from the Smithsonian.com because you’ve already shown a preference for it.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur.html?c=y&page=2