The collagenase enzyme that Mary Schweitzer added to her dinosaur bones is just one of these biomachines whose regular job in animal bodies is to disintegrate collagen fibers. The rate of speed-up provided by enzymes can be roughly estimated by comparing the time taken to digest collagen fibers in their absence (clearly, more than sixty-eight million years) and in the presence of the right enzyme (about thirty minutes): a trillion-fold difference.
