We all know how Jurassic Park ends. Death, blood, dinosaurs loose in the world where they shouldn't be.....etc. But is it possible to do it? Can you actually, with genetics, bring back an extinct species?
Jurassic Park and Jurassic World books and movies claim that mosquitos that drank the blood of animals got stuck on tree sap and that is where they get their DNA. They also claim they filled in DNA gaps with frog and other animals' DNA. Now that we know the claims, let's see if cinema and literature told the scientific truth.
DNA in blood
Starting at the beginning, let's see what science says about DNA and blood. For starters, Amber doesn't preserve soft tissue, and therefore they have no blood to harvest for DNA. Aside from that fact, there are bugs with blood in them that were found, just never in amber. Surprisingly, it's not all that ridiculous that blood residue would be found from the time of dinosaurs in a mosquito. Neanderthal and Mammoth DNA are the only types to be isolated, actually, and only one of which is a dinosaur.
Does that mean there is DNA in it? Sadly, that is never a guarantee. Soft tissue does not equal DNA. DNA breaks down rapidly, especially when water and sunlight are involved. The oldest DNA found is one million years old. We need 66 times older to get to dinosaur times. I don't think John Hammond has enough DNA to even create even one dinosaur, if we follow the scientific evidence.
Filling in DNA Gaps
Okay, we are going to ignore the previous section just to see if, given enough DNA, we could fill in short gaps with frog or other animal DNA. Assume it is possible to gather enough DNA for a dinosaur from here to the end of this section.
Problem one, how do you know where the holes are? Without the full genome you can't find where the holes are, which puts serious holes in the plot of Jurassic Park. Assuming you found a whole genome, we go on myth-busting. We have to acknowledge that frogs are not what you would use, but instead birds because frogs are amphibians, with the noted exception of crocodiles due to common ancestry. In case you didn't know, a chicken is the closest we have to a dinosaur and birds are dinosaurs - surprise! You collect eggs from a dinosaur and made your omelet with a dinosaur egg today.
Cloning and reverse-engineering
Cloning is off the table for dinosaurs, even if we managed to create one. Why? Because DNA is sensitive stuff and old DNA can't handle it. It is, oddly enough, possible to reverse-engineer one. Going back to the chicken point, reverse engineering from the starting point of your backyard egg-layers is strangely more possible. This involves trying to undo years of evolution. Even if you succeed, it is not a true dinosaur at all, simply because it was reverse-engineered. They are actually trying to do this for the wooly mammoth, starting from an Asian elephant.
Ethics
The character Ian Malcolm said that scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they never thought about whether they should. Let's break down the ethics of attempting anything close to Jurassic Park. Anyone watching the movies is likely saying "duh! The carnivores will eat us when they get out!", but you have to consider that not all dinosaurs were carnivores.
First of all, growing teeth back in a bird is terrifying. Do you want to live with whether you should question if that goose, swan, or pigeon has teeth? I don't. In fact, let me introduce you to a "Murder-Swan", a real prehistoric dinosaur that has raptor feet, and it looks like a swan.
By the way, Murder-Swan has teeth. Isn't that fun (sarcasm)? While I can get behind bringing back a passenger pigeon or condor, I can't advocate for a raptor that can navigate land and sea. Can you?
Putting the subject of Murder-Swans aside, I do think that the wooly mammoth would be totally okay to bring back. The only problem with bringing certain dinosaurs back is the world around us. Birds? They have a sky to fly into and trees to land on, but land animals - in a modern world, at that - would be hard to find a place for. We also need to care for them, if given a sanctuary. Our world is not the place for these creatures if we look into what would actually be required to let them back into it. While it would be fun to ride a mammoth at the zoo, it is unlikely to be helpful to their species at this point in time. Rewatch Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom for more evidence of this. This is partially why scientists are hesitant to attempt anything close to Jurassic Park. They seem divided on de-extinction.
If you have not watched Fallen Kingdom Stop Reading Now! Spoilers below!
Fallen Kingdom Bonus Round
Here's the bonus round of today's blog - can you recreate a human with their DNA? Maisie, a character that was cloned, is shown in the second Jurassic World movie. Is it humanly possible to clone someone? Scarily, yes, and it is illegal. Monkeys and sheep have successfully been cloned. Science says it would not be the same person, even as a copy. While some studies suggest cloning may help clone cells and have various other medical uses, a whole person is not going to go well. There are ethical issues involved with editing DNA, which is probably why Hammond had fallen out with his former partner long before the original park opened. Copying your dead child and calling them your grandchild is generally not healthy, and Hammond was rightfully not okay with it.
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