Researchers looked into the healing process of ancient dinosaurs using synchrotron-imaging techniques.
Ancient bones can show image of injury or illness, this new imaging approach could help researchers gain more insight into the dinosaur's healing process than was ever possible before, a Manchester University news release reported.
The technique uses light that is brighter than 10 billion Suns.
Most of the bones showed a number of "grizzly" injuries, most of which would have killed a human if they had not received medical attention.
"Using synchrotron imaging, we were able to detect astoundingly dilute traces of chemical signatures that reveal not only the difference between normal and healed bone, but also how the damaged bone healed," Doctor Phil Manning, one of the paper's authors based in Manchester's School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, said in the news release.
The team believes the dinosaurs developed defense mechanisms that helped them repair their injuries 150 million years ago. The finding could help inspire medical innovations in the modern world.
"Bone does not form scar tissue, like a scratch to your skin, so the body has to completely reform new bone following the same stages that occurred as the skeleton grew in the first place. This means we are able to tease out the chemistry of bone development through such pathological studies," co-author Jennifer Anné said in the news release.
"It's exciting to [realize] how little we know about bone, even after hundreds of years of research. The fact that information on how our own skeleton works can be explored using a 150-million-year-old dinosaur just shows how interlaced science can be," she said.
The precise measurements offered by the light allow researchers to which section of the bone was emplaced after burial and what its original chemistry was, co-author Professor Roy Wogelius said.
