Since the premiere of Jurassic Park in 1993, people are wondering if the ancient dinosaurs can be brought back to life. Darren Griffin, professor of genetics at the University of Kent, and his research assistant, Rebecca O'Connor, provided a scientific perspective on this idea.
This summer, the fifth film in the Jurassic Park franchise is released, which once again raises public interest in dinosaurs and attracts the attention of the younger generation. There is something awe-inspiring and awe-inspiring about the largest, most ferocious, and "deadliest" creatures ever to inhabit the planet. Movies, however, have managed to achieve another advantage - they sparked interest in dinosaur DNA.
The episode with Mr. DNA in the original film is a great example of popularizing the scientific concept, but the idea of extracting DNA from the bodies of mosquitoes that have consumed "dino blood" is nothing more than fantasy.
An excerpt from the original film "Jurassic Park" with Mr. DNA:
Recently, scientists have quite by accident succeeded in determining the general structure of the dinosaur genome. Genome structure - the location of genes on the chromosomes of each species. Although individual animals of the same species will have different DNA sequences, the general structure extends to the entire species.
It all started with identifying the most likely genomic structure for the common ancestor of turtles and birds before changes began to take place. This lineage includes dinosaurs and pterosaurs, which appeared about 240 million years ago, theropods (including Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor) and, of course, birds.
Despite the fact that no one claims to extract dinosaur DNA, we are most worried about the question: "Are we one step closer to the real" Jurassic Park "?" The answer is an emphatic "no" - and there are reasons for that.
Archeopteryx, ancestor of modern birds / Warpaintcobra / iStock.
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First, the idea of intact dinosaur DNA inside a blood-sucking insect preserved in amber does not seem to fit. Moreover, prehistoric mosquitoes with lizard blood have been found, but all the DNA in it has long been destroyed. Scientists were able to successfully isolate the DNA of a Neanderthal and a woolly mammoth, but the material of dinosaurs is simply too old. The oldest DNA found is about a million years old, but the genetic material of prehistoric dinosaurs must be at least 66 million years old, so this is unrealistic.
Secondly, even if dinosaur DNA could be obtained, it would be broken down into millions of microscopic particles, and scientists would have very little information on how to put them together. It would be akin to solving the most difficult jigsaw puzzle - without the slightest idea of what the picture looks like and whether all the details are in place. In Jurassic Park, scientists found missing parts and replaced them with frog DNA, but this would not have come out of a dinosaur, but a hybrid or "frogosaur." Pieces of frog DNA would have a number of negative effects on embryonic development. Moreover, it is more logical to use the DNA of birds as the closest "relatives" (but it still would not work).
Thirdly, recreating a whole animal from a DNA strand is nothing more than a fantasy. Deoxyribonucleic acid is a starting point, but the development of an animal inside an egg is a complex "dance" of genes that turn on and off at certain points in conjunction with the influence of the environment.
In short, first of all you need the perfect dinosaur egg and all the complex chemistry inside it. In the book based on which the original film was made, scientists produced artificial eggs, and in the movies, ostrich eggs. None of the options would have worked in reality. You can't put chicken DNA into an ostrich egg and get a chicken (there have been attempts). The same goes for the Velociraptor. And we have not yet touched on legislation, permits and other paperwork, protest groups and the impact on the ecosystem.
So, it is impossible to resurrect a dinosaur, but …
The fact is that dinosaurs never died out in the full sense of the word. Quite the opposite: they still live everywhere. Birds did not evolve from dinosaurs and are not closely related to them: they are dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs (including birds) have survived at least four global extinctions, each time taking on more incredible and outlandish forms. In theory, their ability to do this is due to the structure of the genome. According to a previous discovery, birds and most flightless dinosaurs had many chromosomes (“packages” of DNA). This allows animals to create variation, which in turn is the engine of natural selection.
However, although this is a distant look into the future, it may later be possible to use Jurassic Park technology to eliminate some of the harm caused by humans. People have witnessed the extinction of famous flying dinosaurs such as the dodo and the wandering pigeon. Isolating DNA, which is only a couple of hundred years old, from the remains of these birds is a more realistic idea. In addition, it may turn out that there are enough eggs of modern species that are closely related. And under the right conditions, it is possible to resurrect some animals from them.
Vladimir Mirny
