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What would it take to bring back the dinosaurs?

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Re: What would it take to bring back the dinosaurs?

#111

Post by BurningFrog »

chasil wrote: post #38
citizenpaul wrote: post #14

The dinosaurs lived in an incomprehensibly different world. From the food and nutrition to the very air they were breathing which we only have vague ideas about. That means the first several generations at the very least would suffer and die from various nutrition, toxicity and environment issues. Even after all that got figured out the dinosaurs would likely have be confined to some small controlled environment righ…

As far as I understand, keeping such creatures alive would require facilities with enriched oxygen. If the large ones escaped, they would suffocate. "...large dinosaurs really required to be living in an oxygen tent. An atmosphere in the neighborhood of 35 percent oxygen would be considerably more compatible with large dinosaurs than one in the neighborhood of 28." Volcanic activity in the Cretaceous enabled these hi…

Well, maybe, but humans can live at altitudes with about to half our normal oxygen levels, so maybe dinosaurs would have similar tolerances.

Re: What would it take to bring back the dinosaurs?

#112

Post by rd07 »

TheMaskedCoder wrote: post #69
DonHopkins wrote: post #29

Bringing back dinosaurs is a lot like using regular expressions: Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll bring back dinosaurs." Now they have two problems.

Suddenly, I am very curious about what problem could possibly inspire bringing back dinosaurs as a potential solution...

The lack of an apex predator that can bring humanity close to extinction maybe

Re: What would it take to bring back the dinosaurs?

#113

Post by moloch-hai »

downrightmike wrote: post #85
vkou wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a 2% CO2 atmosphere combat wildfires? It's a non-reacting gas, but so is nitrogen... And yet, wildfires still happen, despite our 79% nitrogen atmosphere.

Venus has a CO2 atmosphere, so the upper bar is very high.

While it is true that there are no wildfires on Venus, there is also no wood, or oxygen. Any oxygen released immediately reacts with the dirt to make, largely, more CO2.

If you wanted to terraform Venus, you would need to make diamonds out of the air so the carbon wouldn't just burn again. The oxygen you release would then react with the dirt and rocks to make more familiar minerals, and more CO2, of course. For a long time.

The whole surface would be a mile deep in diamonds before you finished. Hardly any water: the solar wind, not deflected by a magnetic field, carried most of that off. She probably had a field when she still rotated fast enough.

Earth gets to keep her water because the moon keeps us rotating enough to keep a magnetic field. Mars lost his because he is too small to keep a liquid core to generate the field with.

Re: What would it take to bring back the dinosaurs?

#116

Post by mbg721 »

jcfrei wrote: post #71
citizenpaul wrote: post #14

The dinosaurs lived in an incomprehensibly different world. From the food and nutrition to the very air they were breathing which we only have vague ideas about. That means the first several generations at the very least would suffer and die from various nutrition, toxicity and environment issues. Even after all that got figured out the dinosaurs would likely have be confined to some small controlled environment righ…

Pretty unlikely that we would be able to find a complete DNA of a single species of dinosaur. More likely we would have to patch it together and while we're at it might as well modify it allow them to survive under current conditions. Just speaking hypothetically here but that seems like the more probable scenario.

That seems more plausible to me too, that we'd actually end up with something "based on actual dinosaurs!", maybe even with "Motel of the Mysteries"-type historical misconceptions baked in, just to make them meet expectations.

Re: What would it take to bring back the dinosaurs?

#117

Post by thaumasiotes »

BurningFrog wrote: post #111
chasil wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand, keeping such creatures alive would require facilities with enriched oxygen. If the large ones escaped, they would suffocate. "...large dinosaurs really required to be living in an oxygen tent. An atmosphere in the neighborhood of 35 percent oxygen would be considerably more compatible with large dinosaurs than one in the neighborhood of 28." Volcanic activity in the Cretaceous enabled these hi…

Well, maybe, but humans can live at altitudes with about to half our normal oxygen levels, so maybe dinosaurs would have similar tolerances.

Humans tolerate those altitudes very poorly. They suffer from health problems and miscarriages.

High-altitude genetic adaptations have been the subject of a fair amount of study; there are three major groups bearing such adapations: Tibetans, Ethiopians, and Andeans.

The Andean adaptation suite is noticeably more primitive and lower-quality; this is generally thought to be the result of having evolved only very recently, after humans made it to the Americas.

The Tibetan suite is so effective that part of it has been proposed to be the result of interbreeding between arriving homo sapiens and a different hominid species native to the Tibetan plateau.

Re: What would it take to bring back the dinosaurs?

#118

Post by thaumasiotes »

photochemsyn wrote: post #13

Dinosaurs are gone, all that remains is their bone structures. No complete genomes are recoverable, just maybe a few fragments. However if you want dinosaur-like creatures, you're basically talking giant flightless birds. So, start with something like an ostritch or a rhea, and use CRISPR to make selective edits aimed at increasing leg size and bone density. This would require a comprehensive understanding of develop…

> if you want dinosaur-like creatures, you're basically talking giant flightless birds.

That would only cover theropods. There are a lot of other dinosaurs.

Re: What would it take to bring back the dinosaurs?

#119

Post by vt85 »

chasil wrote: post #38
citizenpaul wrote: post #14

The dinosaurs lived in an incomprehensibly different world. From the food and nutrition to the very air they were breathing which we only have vague ideas about. That means the first several generations at the very least would suffer and die from various nutrition, toxicity and environment issues. Even after all that got figured out the dinosaurs would likely have be confined to some small controlled environment righ…

As far as I understand, keeping such creatures alive would require facilities with enriched oxygen. If the large ones escaped, they would suffocate. "...large dinosaurs really required to be living in an oxygen tent. An atmosphere in the neighborhood of 35 percent oxygen would be considerably more compatible with large dinosaurs than one in the neighborhood of 28." Volcanic activity in the Cretaceous enabled these hi…

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