Jurassic Park - possible after all?
Discussion
Hi guys
So there has been interesting debate over the years on the possibility of dinosaur cloning, but the main problem was always that DNA degrades after thousands of years, so a 65 million year old T-Rex won't give us DNA. However, a couple of decades ago a palaeontologist called Mary Schweitzer found that by removing the outer layers of fossilized bone using acid, she found living tissue from the femur of a T-Rex. It was enough that she could identify it as being a pregnant female. Scientists were all a bit skeptical, and I have been following it with interest for a number of years. Last year, she carried out further tests and has subsequently found tissue in other fossilized dinosaur bones, but has also got cells in the tissue to react to antibodies only found in birds and dinosaurs. So DNA is therefore possible to extract...
take a look at this:
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=22746901
So what do we think? Could we one day see a T-Rex being cloned after all? How awesome would that be!
So there has been interesting debate over the years on the possibility of dinosaur cloning, but the main problem was always that DNA degrades after thousands of years, so a 65 million year old T-Rex won't give us DNA. However, a couple of decades ago a palaeontologist called Mary Schweitzer found that by removing the outer layers of fossilized bone using acid, she found living tissue from the femur of a T-Rex. It was enough that she could identify it as being a pregnant female. Scientists were all a bit skeptical, and I have been following it with interest for a number of years. Last year, she carried out further tests and has subsequently found tissue in other fossilized dinosaur bones, but has also got cells in the tissue to react to antibodies only found in birds and dinosaurs. So DNA is therefore possible to extract...
take a look at this:
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=22746901
So what do we think? Could we one day see a T-Rex being cloned after all? How awesome would that be!
There was a documentary on the telly about this recently and the work she has done.
She's now scouring the areas in China I believe for fossilised remains that weren't subjected to a lot of water when buried as this "washes" a lot of the information away.
I think Jurassic park is a long way off but never say never.
I hope that it's run by a better group than those that ran the original park.
She's now scouring the areas in China I believe for fossilised remains that weren't subjected to a lot of water when buried as this "washes" a lot of the information away.
I think Jurassic park is a long way off but never say never.
I hope that it's run by a better group than those that ran the original park.
Sounds a bit odd, they are extracting the cells from the insides of fossilised bones so not sure why China and water would have anything to do with it? Still, it does sound promising. If true, it opens a whole world of possibilities up... would love to see a real T-Rex! I'm such a child.
It seems suspicious to me that of all the many dinosaur species known, she just happened to find 'tissue' in the big scary famous one.
I doubt there can be any DNA left after so long, but even if there was, you'd need a complete genome to make a new dinosaur, not just a few base pairs.
I doubt there can be any DNA left after so long, but even if there was, you'd need a complete genome to make a new dinosaur, not just a few base pairs.
robsa said:
Scientists suggested that what she had was some sort of goop from bacteria which had got in there somehow, but her latest tests seem to prove otherwise.
The presence of anti-body binding really doesnt mean much tbh and prodidium iodide staining shows that there is some DNA/RNA there, its a bit of a crude tool and I only use it to measure relative DNA content for cell cycle analysis. It gives no indication of quality unfortunately, although DNA is very very stable I would be very suprised if it survived for that kind of time frame. If she can extract it and get some sequence, probably using some common bird primers but find some novel sequence then il be impressed. It shouldn't be to hard to place any sequence into an evolutionary persepective, that would get my attetntion.
I have some questions…
1) I assume you would need another animal to give ‘birth’ to a t-rex… so firstly, whatever is born will only be part t-rex… so what animal would give birth to a t-rex? An alligator? Who would the carrier be?
2) Couldn’t we at the moment have a rough idea what changing certain numbers in DNA sequencing would mean? We know what a t-rex looks like structurally from its fossils and habitat(s) so why do we need actual t-rex DNA to sequence it? Couldn’t we theoretically alter some DNA to make it resemble what we like?
3) Who would pass law on this actually being possible? Would this have to be done in some country where the government get back handers?
4) Finally… in all seriousness, what good will this bring? I think it would be awesome from a selfish and intriguing point of view, but once a female alligator’s eggs hatch into some kind of odd looking t-rex/alligator hybrid, what’s next? This doesn’t seem like a path to go down with any real merits at the end of it.
1) I assume you would need another animal to give ‘birth’ to a t-rex… so firstly, whatever is born will only be part t-rex… so what animal would give birth to a t-rex? An alligator? Who would the carrier be?
2) Couldn’t we at the moment have a rough idea what changing certain numbers in DNA sequencing would mean? We know what a t-rex looks like structurally from its fossils and habitat(s) so why do we need actual t-rex DNA to sequence it? Couldn’t we theoretically alter some DNA to make it resemble what we like?
3) Who would pass law on this actually being possible? Would this have to be done in some country where the government get back handers?
4) Finally… in all seriousness, what good will this bring? I think it would be awesome from a selfish and intriguing point of view, but once a female alligator’s eggs hatch into some kind of odd looking t-rex/alligator hybrid, what’s next? This doesn’t seem like a path to go down with any real merits at the end of it.
mu0n said:
1) I assume you would need another animal to give ‘birth’ to a t-rex… so firstly, whatever is born will only be part t-rex… so what animal would give birth to a t-rex? An alligator? Who would the carrier be?
It would be all t-rex, if a full genome could be obtained, it would be implanted into an egg and since DNA determines the animal it would be entirely t-rex. However getting a full genome is by no means straight forward. As for which animal giving birth, well they're reptiles so you'd need something that could lay a suitably large egg...mu0n said:
2) Couldn’t we at the moment have a rough idea what changing certain numbers in DNA sequencing would mean? We know what a t-rex looks like structurally from its fossils and habitat(s) so why do we need actual t-rex DNA to sequence it? Couldn’t we theoretically alter some DNA to make it resemble what we like?
We don't understand how DNA shapes animals to that level yet. We can just about identify that certain genes do certain things, we're a long way from being able to engineer new organisms.mu0n said:
3) Who would pass law on this actually being possible? Would this have to be done in some country where the government get back handers?
Probably, or on an island some crackpot scientist had bought to turn into a theme park... mu0n said:
4) Finally… in all seriousness, what good will this bring? I think it would be awesome from a selfish and intriguing point of view, but once a female alligator’s eggs hatch into some kind of odd looking t-rex/alligator hybrid, what’s next? This doesn’t seem like a path to go down with any real merits at the end of it.
Knowing more about dinosaur DNA would mean being able to track evolution in more detail. It would be of some interest to palaeontologists I should imagine.Agreed.
There is a lot of scientific interest in knowing and understanding the evolutionary place that dinosaurs hold in life's family tree.
Being able to obtain even some original dino DNA would go some way to help us understand this.
From all the latest finds, it certainly seems to me that the DNA that is going to most closely match that of dinosaurs is not the DNA of lizards, alligators, turtles or frogs - but the DNA of birds.
There is a lot of scientific interest in knowing and understanding the evolutionary place that dinosaurs hold in life's family tree.
Being able to obtain even some original dino DNA would go some way to help us understand this.
From all the latest finds, it certainly seems to me that the DNA that is going to most closely match that of dinosaurs is not the DNA of lizards, alligators, turtles or frogs - but the DNA of birds.
Edited by Eric Mc on Monday 21st October 17:59
king eat us!Eric Mc said:
Agreed.
There is a lot of scientific interest in knowing and understanding the evolutionary place that dinosaurs hold in life's family tree.
Being able to obtain even some original dino DNA would go some way to help us understand this.
From all the latest finds, it certainly seems to me that the DNA that is going to most closely match that of dinosaurs is not the DNA of lizards, alligators, turtles or frogs - but the DNA of birds.
Yup.There is a lot of scientific interest in knowing and understanding the evolutionary place that dinosaurs hold in life's family tree.
Being able to obtain even some original dino DNA would go some way to help us understand this.
From all the latest finds, it certainly seems to me that the DNA that is going to most closely match that of dinosaurs is not the DNA of lizards, alligators, turtles or frogs - but the DNA of birds.
Edited by Eric Mc on Monday 21st October 17:59
Birds will hold the key as there is obvious evolution whereas the lizard side of things has arguably stood still.
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