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Possible dinosaur DNA has been found

scientificamerican.com

21–30 of 120 posts

Re: Possible dinosaur DNA has been found

#21

This is a naive question...but let's just say we do have the DNA, is Jurrasic park possible with today's technology?! I remember reading that someone was trying to inseminate an elephant with mammoth sperm a couple years ago but failed. Not sure if it was because the sample was super old or it just doesn't work.

It would die near instantly anyway. Very likely modern bacteria and viruses would overwhelm the creature's immune systems.

Re: Possible dinosaur DNA has been found

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a completely impossible fantasy. DNA has a half life of ~500 years. Mammoths only died out around 10,000 years ago, which is why it's conceivable that one could be brought back, but all dinosaur DNA has been destroyed for millions of years.

That is what was thought but if the finding in the article turns out to be true then that might need to be reevaluated.

[deleted]

Re: Possible dinosaur DNA has been found

#23
post #4

I love how not only the time of existence but also its size and appearance are presented as undisputable facts.

> I love how not only the time of existence but also its size and appearance are presented as undisputable facts.

All evidence and models across a large variety of disciplines points to the age of the fossils. Geological strata, carbon isotope ratios, phylogenetics, etc.

Feel free to present your evidence so that we can weigh in.

Re: Possible dinosaur DNA has been found

#25

This is a naive question...but let's just say we do have the DNA, is Jurrasic park possible with today's technology?! I remember reading that someone was trying to inseminate an elephant with mammoth sperm a couple years ago but failed. Not sure if it was because the sample was super old or it just doesn't work.

It's a completely impossible fantasy. DNA has a half life of ~500 years. Mammoths only died out around 10,000 years ago, which is why it's conceivable that one could be brought back, but all dinosaur DNA has been destroyed for millions of years.

> all dinosaur DNA has been destroyed for millions of years

.. Except for the DNA that has survived and been passed down to living species today.

Re: Possible dinosaur DNA has been found

#26

This is a naive question...but let's just say we do have the DNA, is Jurrasic park possible with today's technology?! I remember reading that someone was trying to inseminate an elephant with mammoth sperm a couple years ago but failed. Not sure if it was because the sample was super old or it just doesn't work.

It's a completely impossible fantasy. DNA has a half life of ~500 years. Mammoths only died out around 10,000 years ago, which is why it's conceivable that one could be brought back, but all dinosaur DNA has been destroyed for millions of years.

>> DNA has a half life of ~500 years.

Could you describe half life here? So suppose the strands are now small snippets. If you find enough, couldnt you overlap common parts and eventually re-construct the full length?

Re: Possible dinosaur DNA has been found

#27

"At best, their biological makers seem to be degraded remnants of genes that cannot be read—broken-down components rather than intact parts of a sequence." So... what good does that do?

Homology studies. A DNA strand 17 bp long is pretty distinct. If a strand that long or longer was found, we would gain a lot of information about the evolutionary history of dinosaurs that we could never get from fossils. However, the article isn't clear about what they found. It says DNA, then it says there may not be a recoverable sequence. In that case nucleic acids would be a better term than DNA. Without more in…

"broken down components" reads like loose nucleic acids to me, rather than actual DNA fragments

Re: Possible dinosaur DNA has been found

#28

This is a naive question...but let's just say we do have the DNA, is Jurrasic park possible with today's technology?! I remember reading that someone was trying to inseminate an elephant with mammoth sperm a couple years ago but failed. Not sure if it was because the sample was super old or it just doesn't work.

It's a completely impossible fantasy. DNA has a half life of ~500 years. Mammoths only died out around 10,000 years ago, which is why it's conceivable that one could be brought back, but all dinosaur DNA has been destroyed for millions of years.

Bringing back mammoths based only on DNA seems to me to be akin to bringing back a New Yorker based only on DNA, thousands of years after NYC no longer exists. Even with perfect DNA, I think we underestimate the role that social structure and ecological momentum play in even the simplest of creatures. I think humans are the rule and not the exception when it comes to learning after birth.

And that's not even getting into the complex interaction between a mother and her unborn child, including cytoplasm, mitochondrial RNA, etc. It's not like an organism springs whole cloth from DNA alone.

Re: Possible dinosaur DNA has been found

#29

This is a naive question...but let's just say we do have the DNA, is Jurrasic park possible with today's technology?! I remember reading that someone was trying to inseminate an elephant with mammoth sperm a couple years ago but failed. Not sure if it was because the sample was super old or it just doesn't work.

It's a completely impossible fantasy. DNA has a half life of ~500 years. Mammoths only died out around 10,000 years ago, which is why it's conceivable that one could be brought back, but all dinosaur DNA has been destroyed for millions of years.

What about mammoths or passenger pigeons, then?

Re: Possible dinosaur DNA has been found

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a completely impossible fantasy. DNA has a half life of ~500 years. Mammoths only died out around 10,000 years ago, which is why it's conceivable that one could be brought back, but all dinosaur DNA has been destroyed for millions of years.

>> DNA has a half life of ~500 years. Could you describe half life here? So suppose the strands are now small snippets. If you find enough, couldnt you overlap common parts and eventually re-construct the full length?

It means half of the dna is destroyed every 500 years. After 65,000,000 years, you have 1/(2^130,000)th of the original DNA left, which is to say, none at all.
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