One of these days, scientists will figure out a way to both write and express genes in the way they want. We'll create monsters, woohoo!
Now all they need to do is get a trex going and we can finally live our dreams of riding them
This is all I could think of after reading the title.
problem is that the DNA is horribly degraded, pretty much beyond use. You can't sequence what isn't there.
Jurassic Park was rather cool in a way, in that it was based on active research at the time, the theory of which was rather sound. It was only discovered that the DNA that was actually extracted was completely useless. Dinosaurs are just too damn old.
It's ok. I got this.
I will build a time machine, wit ha few huge syringes. Jump back in time. Coerce a Velociraptor into a box (much like a cat) by leaving a few boxes out. When they finally come into the box to sit, because lets be honest all animals love sitting in boxes (especially cats). I will walk up to it, jab a few syringes into it and get DNA the old fasion way. Teh run like hell back into my time machines.
They couldn't survive here anyway. There's not enough oxygen in the air now to support them.
problem is that the DNA is horribly degraded, pretty much beyond use. You can't sequence what isn't there.
The $64,000 question is whether the DNA is completely gone or simply degraded beyond the point where current technology can read the information. It wasn't that long ago that being able to sequence DNA of any age would have been impossible, it's possible that the information is there and beyond our capabilities to see it. As improved telescopes unlocked places in the universe once out of view it's not too hard to believe that advances in DNA tech will someday make it possible to see what we can't see now.
it would involve lots of inference, as basically what you have with extracted dino DNA, is an assembly (such as it is; no one has ever attempted a true dino assembly, afaik) that is full of massive holes, and the base calls that you do have, probably have low confidence.
If we have complete assemblies of critters like crocodiles and alligators and sharks and various moniter lizards, we could theoretically approach something like a complete dinosaur assembly. So--much like with jurassic park, you would be using closely-related ancestors to plug in massive gaps, ....but these are huge gaps. And this is for assembly purposes, so mostly working out of theory and no practical or reasonable ability to generate a critter from such knowledge. (We can kinda sorta now make a single-celled organism from synthetic RNA; but actually making a dinosaur, outside of somatic cell nuclear transformation? hmmm)
It's ok. I got this.
I will build a time machine, wit ha few huge syringes. Jump back in time. Coerce a Velociraptor into a box (much like a cat) by leaving a few boxes out. When they finally come into the box to sit, because lets be honest all animals love sitting in boxes (especially cats). I will walk up to it, jab a few syringes into it and get DNA the old fasion way. Teh run like hell back into my time machines.
WHOOSH!
Once again, the $64,000 question is how you're so sure about those gaps. Is the information truly missing or are we missing it because the current tech isn't up to the job? This is a science in its infancy, there's a lot left to learn both with the DNA and with the tools used to read the DNA. Science could be sitting on a complete strand of dinosaur DNA and not even know it because the tech can't see it YET.
The word impossible is something I tend to avoid in conversations about this since I know jack shit and the science is relatively new. What were people saying about cloning 50 years ago? Didn't they say that human cloning was impossible but then they changed their mind?
What? No one said human cloning was impossible. That's particularly why it remained in sci-fi from moments after DNA was discovered all the way until now. Hell, my teacher used it as an example when describing what DNA was when I was first learning about it decades ago.The word impossible is something I tend to avoid in conversations about this since I know jack shit and the science is relatively new. What were people saying about cloning 50 years ago? Didn't they say that human cloning was impossible but then they changed their mind?
It'd be great to bring back species, but you should care more about preserving the ones we have, which we are losing at an enourmous rate.
Not many know that in the history of the planet there have been six maxx extinction events, and the sixth is currently occuring.
Donate to "Center for Biological Diversity" or your nearest progressive politician.