'Sue' Set to Go on Display at Chicago's Field Museum
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: There is a lot of excitement at Chicago's Field Museum this morning over a bunch of old bones.</s>LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: These aren't just any old bones, though. In about 30 minutes from now, this museum is going to unveil the biggest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton fossil ever uncovered.</s>LIN: And with that build up, CNN's Jeff Flock is only dino beat this morning, and joins us live from the Field Museum. Hi, Jeff.</s>HARRIS: Hey, Jeff.</s>JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you. Bones even older than mine here in Chicago this morning. Indeed, 67 million years are about to go on display. You see the curtain back there behind me. The Chicago Field Museum -- and we've got a picture from the outside the kind of gives you a good picture of what this great museum looks like. It is the real focus of activity in this city, and perhaps around the country this morning. As you report, the significance here is the most expensive T. rex skeleton ever found, 90 percent of the skeleton. Never before has any kind of skeleton -- that much of a skeleton been found, I guess is the best way to say. And perhaps you can see the people gathered in Chicago. That unveiling in less than a half-hour now. I want to take you back to some pictures of what they have been doing for the past two years since the obtained this $8.36 million at auction at Sotheby's. They have been -- 10 people have taken about two years to clean and repair the bones and then go about the business of putting it all together. And it is that final -- the final version, the whole skeleton together, that you will see today. I'm joined by Becky Margolin, who's the assistant exhibit developer here. And I guess I would ask, first, what were your goals? What were you hoping to achieve here?</s>BECKY MARGOLIN, ASST. DEVELOPER, "SUE" EXHIBIT: We were hoping to showcase Sue and just sort of display her as what she is, the world's largest, most complete, and best preserved T. rex.</s>FLOCK: You will find, no doubt, new information from what you got here. What do you expect to find out? And what have you found out so far?</s>MARGOLIN: Well, one of the biggest things we have found out so far is the T. rex must have had an excellent sense of smell. About two years ago we sent her for a CT scan of her skull, and the results showed that she had huge olfactory bulbs.</s>FLOCK: Which means maybe she was a scavenger more than a hunter.</s>MARGOLIN: Not necessarily. It sort of supports either argument. If she were a scavenger, it would have given her wonderful powers to smell rotting flesh.</s>FLOCK: I want to talk about the exhibit. We've got some pictures from where she was first assembled in Trenton that show the extraordinary way you've gone -- the lengths you've gone to to make the exhibit able -- open to continued research.</s>MARGOLIN: Yes, it was our scientists' biggest concern that if someone was interested in studying a part of Sue, the bone would be readily accessible to them.</s>FLOCK: So how do you describe what we're saying there? It's almost like they are set in a jewelry setting? Is that how you...</s>MARGOLIN: Yes, every bone is sort of a giant jewelry setting, it cradles each bone...</s>FLOCK: So if I were a researcher, I want to come in, I could just obtained the bone, have it taken out...</s>MARGOLIN: It's a little more difficult than that. It's a long process to get every piece out. You have to remove a lot of bones to get to certain bones. But it's definitely doable if need be.</s>FLOCK: Thank you, I appreciate the time. Thank you this morning.</s>MARGOLIN: Thank you.</s>FLOCK: Two hundred fifty plus bones and they will all be on display here at the Field Museum in, oh, I think about 25 minutes or so. We will be back to show it to you live. I'm Jeff flock, CNN, reporting live from the Field Museum in Chicago.</s>HARRIS: Jeff, Leon here, real quick, how in the world do they know it was a girl? Why did they named it "Sue"?</s>FLOCK: In fact they don't know that it's a girl. I would ask Becky for extra explanation about that, but they have not been able to determine. So at this point, we call her Sue because she was found by a young lady named Sue Hendrickson. But beyond that, we don't know.</s>HARRIS: All right, good deal. Thanks, Jeff.