The famous... Is dinosaur creation impossible or possible?

Assassin X · Post by **Assassin X** » 2005-03-11 10:37pm

I always asked this question long before Jurrasic Park came out. After it cam out people starting making their own stories up. But before JP came out there were small actual true stories here and there (of course no one payed attention then) that the goverment was trying to recrete the dinosaurs but failed. Mind you i was never big on it because i also say "Show me proof". BUt they said they were using fossilized DNA , which after the movie came out i was like "WOW".

Anyways, these stories always said they never were able to finish it because it didnt work out. I really dont think its impossible now that ive looked into it but has anyone heard anthing about it?

I mean if it was true wouldnt there still be stories? Its like it just stopped all of the sudden. So maybe there never was any "Dinosaur recreation" scientist. But then again i think to myself scientist are always doing things like trying to clone and recreate old animals like Dodo birds so maybe recreating dinos isnt the farfetched. Maybe they really are still doing it!

I dont know, its one of those subjects that crosses a line of reality vs fantasy.

So anyone got links? Comments? Anyone know of people that are trying to bring back the dinos? BTW we already know the obvious of its a bad idea because being eaten isnt on anyones list.

Firefox · Post by **Firefox** » 2005-03-11 11:42pm

I've heard nothing of the sort, but why would the government be interested? There's no inherent value in trying to bring back dinosaurs, and the technology's practically impossible.

Yes, I know about the DoD study into psychic teleportation, but I digress.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2005-03-12 12:10am

siberia needs mammoths.

for the scenary.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2005-03-12 01:33am

Dinosaur DNA may not be intact enough to be used in cloning after being fossilized for millions of years.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2005-03-12 06:38am

An internal debate in my mind on government cloning of Dinosaurs.

Left Brain: Its should be done for the inherent coolness factor.

Right Brain: If you spend my tax dollars on bringing back some extinct reptiles and don't have a way of profiting from it then fix social security first damn it!

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2005-03-12 07:53am

DNA doesn't fossilize. You would need to find some that had been prevented from decaying somehow. Bloodsucking insects preserved in amber is a theoretical possibility, though so far as I know nobody's ever extracted any blood from them. Another possibility I heard--and this may have just been a quasi-plausible plot device for a story--is that the bones of the largest sauropods might have deep enough cavities to preserve some marrow if they were buried fast enough. To date, nobody's ever discovered any

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2005-03-12 08:57am

I've seen the logistics on it. Imagin plopping an 60 million year old immune system down in modern times. You'd have to watch the suckers daily to make sure they didn't get sick/were immunized. It's just not that pheasable. At least currently. I'm sure some excentric billionair could get the ball rolling...but I just don't see it happening.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2005-03-12 09:17am

Majin Gojira wrote:I've seen the logistics on it. Imagin plopping an 60 million year old immune system down in modern times. You'd have to watch the suckers daily to make sure they didn't get sick/were immunized. It's just not that pheasable. At least currently. I'm sure some excentric billionair could get the ball rolling...but I just don't see it happening.

dredging a swamp in new orleans un earthed a multi-million year old amphibian, who was in resting torpor. The thing lived less then two days in a zoo before dying in the early 20th century.

fun facts my science teacher brought up on the immune system problem.

Shadowhawk · Post by **Shadowhawk** » 2005-03-12 09:48pm

The Yosemite Bear wrote:dredging a swamp in new orleans un earthed a multi-million year old amphibian, who was in resting torpor. The thing lived less then two days in a zoo before dying in the early 20th century.

fun facts my science teacher brought up on the immune system problem.

Er, did he give any sources for that?
I can't find a single thing on google about it.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-03-12 10:17pm

yeah, i'm thinking there'd be a huge Jurassic Park-type Media frenzy if they actually brought back to life a complex vertebrate.

but the bigger ones would suffocate anyways. back then, the O2 levels were almost 10% higher. it'd be worse than gasping mountain air. that's why no animals exist that are larger than around 7 tons today. there simply isn't enough oxygen. and all the fast predators are under 800 lbs (lion tiger etc.), because they simply can't peform at the pace that predators need to perform at if they're 1000 lbs.

Assassin X · Post by **Assassin X** » 2005-03-13 12:47am

The biggest problem i have with this subject is i dont talk much about it now because most people assume i bring it up because ive seen JP, which im a huge fan, but people dont realize ive been interested in this way before the movies.

The worse people are the ones that you say something about it and they mention facts from the movies and its like "Um.... JP is a movie. Not actually science."

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-03-13 01:16am

It's pretty much impossible, no matter how much Crichton or anyone else may write about it. Being able to find a completely intact genome and even then, you don't know what it'd look like given such animals don't exist anymore, well, it's slim to nothing. Then there's the need for a surrogate mother since our technology isn't able to readily bring a new organism into the world without a little help from nature already.

I don't think you'll be seeing dinos from the past appear anytime soon, or rather, ever.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2005-03-13 12:50pm

Now, *re*creating dinosaurs - or some facsimile thereof, once we gain the ability to conduct gross manipulation of a genome, may be possible. But not very useful, except as a demonstration of the 'tech.

Sriad · Post by **Sriad** » 2005-03-13 12:51pm

unbeataBULL wrote:but the bigger ones would suffocate anyways. back then, the O2 levels were almost 10% higher. it'd be worse than gasping mountain air. that's why no animals exist that are larger than around 7 tons today. there simply isn't enough oxygen. and all the fast predators are under 800 lbs (lion tiger etc.), because they simply can't peform at the pace that predators need to perform at if they're 1000 lbs.

Negative. The air pressure at one mile above sea level is 80% of sea level. Unless dinosaurs were running around constantly on the edge of death back then, they'd be okay now.

"no animals exist that are larger than around 7 tons today"

While it is true that whales are scientifically classified as plants and whale sharks are giant robots, the reason there are so few large animals around is human interferance.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2005-03-13 01:33pm

Sriad wrote:
unbeataBULL wrote:but the bigger ones would suffocate anyways. back then, the O2 levels were almost 10% higher. it'd be worse than gasping mountain air. that's why no animals exist that are larger than around 7 tons today. there simply isn't enough oxygen. and all the fast predators are under 800 lbs (lion tiger etc.), because they simply can't peform at the pace that predators need to perform at if they're 1000 lbs.
Negative. The air pressure at one mile above sea level is 80% of sea level. Unless dinosaurs were running around constantly on the edge of death back then, they'd be okay now.

"no animals exist that are larger than around 7 tons today"

While it is true that whales are scientifically classified as plants and whale sharks are giant robots, the reason there are so few large animals around is human interferance.

Yeah...the age of megamammals, as I've heard it put, is dead, and we rang its death knell.

Besides which, tigers can reach weights upwards of a thousand pounds, and ligers (crossbreeds of lion and tiger - sometimes sterile, but sometimes fertile with their own species) can reach sizes several hundred pounds heavier than that.

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2005-03-13 01:44pm

I want to conduct systematic breeding experiments with Komodo dragons to try to turn them into dinosaur-like monsters. That would be so cool!

"So, Mr. Bond, you've discovered my secret hideout. However, there are three things you've overlooked: THE THREE TERRIFYING DINOSAURS BEHIND YOU!!! *scuttles out through secret passage while cackling evilly*"

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2005-03-13 01:59pm

Meh, I'd rather gene-tweak myself for night-vision, enhanced sense of smell, gills and a prehensile tail...

Assassin X · Post by **Assassin X** » 2005-03-13 04:53pm

This is a little off topic from my ...topic.

I did like in the JP: Lost World books when they, near end of book, were in the territory of the Chameleon dinsoaur. That was a great chapter.

Anyways...!

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-03-13 05:10pm

As others have said, it is entirely impossible. After tens of millions of years, you're lucky if you can recover protein fragments from the remains of an animal, let alone enough DNA to permit cloning of a complete animal. (DNA in something that has died has a hard enough time surviving intact for a few thousand years, let alone millions. It tends to break down into random fragments in fairly short order.)

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2005-03-13 05:27pm

A rapidly frozen mammoth or mastodon (or what-ever large iceage mammel that suits your fancy) could, theoritically, retain an intact genetic code.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2005-03-14 05:06am

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:A rapidly frozen mammoth or mastodon (or what-ever large iceage mammel that suits your fancy) could, theoritically, retain an intact genetic code.

Wasn't there a proposal awhile back to try to clone the dead mammoth they found frozen into a glacier in Siberia?

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2005-03-14 05:21pm

The Yosemite Bear wrote:
Majin Gojira wrote:I've seen the logistics on it. Imagin plopping an 60 million year old immune system down in modern times. You'd have to watch the suckers daily to make sure they didn't get sick/were immunized. It's just not that pheasable. At least currently. I'm sure some excentric billionair could get the ball rolling...but I just don't see it happening.
dredging a swamp in new orleans un earthed a multi-million year old amphibian, who was in resting torpor. The thing lived less then two days in a zoo before dying in the early 20th century.

fun facts my science teacher brought up on the immune system problem.

Any pics?