Is Jurrasic Park Possible

[AutomagSam]

I know this question sounds lame, but theoretically speaking, is it possible for dinosaurs to be created using the process in the movie.

[Mokele]

Nope, any DNA in amber is long degraded beyond usefulness.

[ecoli]

if you somehow had the complete genome of the dinosaur and was able to replace all the DNA in an embryo really early during development, than I suppose it might work.

 

OF course, we don't have the DNA, so it's sort of a moot point. Although it's still an interesting question for realistic goals like designer genes and curing genetic diseases, etc.

[Klaynos]

The bit I really loved about that film is that they had one mosquito and yet managed to get the DNA of so many different types of dino!

[Zimed]

If you were able to find a bone, or any matter from a dinosaur at the time, within ice/glaciers, the marrow and DNA would be preserved enough for replication, and thus salvagable.

[Mokele]

If you were able to find a bone, or any matter from a dinosaur at the time, within ice/glaciers, the marrow and DNA would be preserved enough for replication, and thus salvagable.

 

Not necessarily; even frozen DNA degrades, just more slowly, as evidenced by the DNA recovered from permafrost-encased mamoth bones - the DNA had plenty of damage, just not nearly as much as a non-frozen bone, and it was only about 40,000 years old, IIRC. Multiply that by 2000, and there's not much left.

 

Plus, though there *were* areas where freezing occured during the Mesozoic, there weren't even permanent polar ice caps; Antarctica was a lush forest, and there were alligators in Alaska.

 

Mokele

[SkepticLance]

For Jurassic Park fans, there is still a way.

 

We may not ever be able to get hold of undamaged dinosaur DNA, but there is nothing to stop a genetically advanced society from synthesizing it.

 

We would start with reptile DNA and modify it to introduce the physical qualities required for an ersatz dinosaur. Of course, it would require a biology well in advance of what we have now, but give us 200 years .....

[Mokele]

We may not ever be able to get hold of undamaged dinosaur DNA, but there is nothing to stop a genetically advanced society from synthesizing it. We would start with reptile DNA and modify it to introduce the physical qualities required for an ersatz dinosaur.

 

I'd bank on time travel first. To quote a weblog I read, doing that would be like buying two tons of steel wool and trying to knit a Ferrari.

 

The problem is that we'd be missing huge amounts of information. Behavior? Sensory physiology? Mode of sex determination? All unknown, all possibly vastly different between the various dinosaur lineages.

 

You may make something that looks like a dinosaur, but it would no more *be* a dinosaur than a horse with an antler bone graft on its forhead is a unicorn.

 

Mokele

[SkepticLance]

You may make something that looks like a dinosaur, but it would no more *be* a dinosaur than a horse with an antler bone graft on its forhead is a unicorn.

 

Hence the use of the word 'ersatz'.

 

Personally, if I was going to be a tourist wandering through some version of Jurassic Park, I would really like to be sure that the 'dinosaurs' were genetically modified to be non aggressive.

[AutomagSam]

You may make something that looks like a dinosaur, but it would no more *be* a dinosaur than a horse with an antler bone graft on its forhead is a unicorn.

 

Hence the use of the word 'ersatz'.

 

Personally, if I was going to be a tourist wandering through some version of Jurassic Park, I would really like to be sure that the 'dinosaurs' were genetically modified to be non aggressive.

 

Who would want to see a docile Velociraptor lol.

[Mokele]

Awww, where's the fun in that?

[Lekgolo555]

Even if you did have full dna, how would impregnating a frog work like they do in the movie? Could I impregnate an ape with my sperm? Seriously no jokes please.

[Mokele]

Yes and no. In principle, you could remove the nucleus of an single-celled zygote just after fertilization and replace it with dino DNA. However, that neglects the complexity of the egg's surface proteins, mRNAs and other cytoplasmic contents.

 

Mokele

[SkepticLance]

The movie actually suggested that they took DNA from modern day reptiles and amphibians, and used specific sequences to replace sequences that were missing from the dinosaur blood, extracted from a mosquito in amber.

 

What you end up with may look like a dinosaur, but at the metabolic level, is not. The movie also suggested that the ability to undergo parthenogenesis in frogs was passed to the dinosaurs, allowing them to reproduce even without a mate, with suggested catastrophic consequences. Good fiction, but only fiction.

[foodchain]

Well, without the genetics I would have to say how would you reach everything else biologically about the dinosaurs? I don’t think you could time travel avian dna to get it either, that’s about the only other link I could think of.

 

The creation of artificial dinosaurs would not only be a scary idea to me, but what real purpose would they serve? I don’t think ethically genetics and entertainment should work together though the sports industry at some point might attempt to disagree.

[AutomagSam]

Even if you did have full dna, how would impregnating a frog work like they do in the movie? Could I impregnate an ape with my sperm? Seriously no jokes please.

 

Um they never impregnated a frog if you actually watch the movie. The used some african frog to fill in the genetic gaps, thus thats why the dinosaur was able to change sex in order to breed due to the use of the frog genes.

[Lekgolo555]

^^^^

 

I did see it, i guess I do not remember.

 

But how would you clone anyways? Even if you have dna, you still need cells to reproduce and grow. Having strands of molecules doesnt do anything.

[foodchain]

^^^^

 

I did see it, i guess I do not remember.

 

But how would you clone anyways? Even if you have dna, you still need cells to reproduce and grow. Having strands of molecules doesnt do anything.

 

They use some existing organism for basically a host for dino DNA. I think it was some frog specie used, which played a role later in the movie if memory serves.