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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?

#61

Post by yamtaddle »

cogman10 wrote: post #21

Before we bring back dinos, I'd love to see us bring back species we drove extinct such as the dodo.

Seems to me that until we can do it with a mammoth—which is way easier for a ton of reasons—bringing back any kind of dinosaur is about as sci-fi as faster-than-light travel.

Maybe as biology hacking becomes the new frontier in the coming decades we'll be able to work back from a bird to something impressively dinosaur-like, but I'm not optimistic about growing one from DNA fragments or whatever. Even with a complete genome I think it'd be damn difficult.

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

#63

Post by moloch-hai »

VaxWithSex wrote: post #49
moloch-hai wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sauropods, particularly. And while we are at it, pterosaurs, which are not dinosaurs, and mosasaurs, likewise. All are equally plausible, meaning not . The original article is actually promoting inventing new animals that look like dinosaurs. Or rather what we guess they looked like. We might be able to do that, someday. Anything that looks like a sauropod would need solutions for all the problems anything sauropod-s…

Sauropods are Saurischian not Ornitishian. But you are right, we want them too. The vw sized heart was in a dinosaur show when I was a kid. Either David Norman or Bob Baker stood below a brachiosaur and told the audience about the heart. wow 30 years. Time flies.

Right, not ornithischian.

For those in the back, sauropods, despite appearances, run with the tyrannosaurs and birds, not the triceratopses and hadrosaurs. Or anyway walk. Or did.

My solution to their energy problem is eusociality: big Mama stays put and is fed by the small fry who range far and wide. They also tend her eggs. She eats their first-level output, then they eat her better-digested leavings. The digestion scheme is like rabbits, and addresses the problem that absorbing nutrients through a 2D intestinal wall scales badly to a 3D animal. If she doesn't need to heave her bulk around the forest, her energy needs are lessened. Meanwhile, the small fry don't need to digest everything all the way.

The small fry are no bigger than elephants.

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

#64

Post by rrgok »

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…

"Basically if we bring back dinosaurs it will be to torture them for our amusement and curiosity". Just a thought experiment, I hope I won't be downvoted to hell. Isn't this the predicament of all beings? You might say, that some people enjoy life, but at that point you should

1) Confirm that all beings are not answering with a Stockholm Syndrome

2) Confirm what is the subjective experience of the dinosaur

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

#65

Post by russdill »

subsubzero wrote: post #37

I love thought experiments like these, One would have to think where could ancient dinosaur DNA survive? Antarctica has been covered by ice for 5 million years, that is still 60 million years too young. Maybe there are a few bugs that have dino dna that is better preserved than the stuff that has been exposed to sunlight and elements the past 5 million years. And even if there is viable dna you would have to drill do…

If you want to make a really dramatic movie, have it survive in giant rock fragments knocked into orbit around the sun when the Chicxulub meteor struck the Earth. The inside would hopefully remain very cold and shielded from external radation.

I suspect though that not only would breakdown of DNA still happen on it's own, but atomic decay within the rock would be enough to destroy the DNA.

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

#66

Post by subsubzero »

russdill wrote: post #65
subsubzero wrote: post #37

I love thought experiments like these, One would have to think where could ancient dinosaur DNA survive? Antarctica has been covered by ice for 5 million years, that is still 60 million years too young. Maybe there are a few bugs that have dino dna that is better preserved than the stuff that has been exposed to sunlight and elements the past 5 million years. And even if there is viable dna you would have to drill do…

If you want to make a really dramatic movie, have it survive in giant rock fragments knocked into orbit around the sun when the Chicxulub meteor struck the Earth. The inside would hopefully remain very cold and shielded from external radation. I suspect though that not only would breakdown of DNA still happen on it's own, but atomic decay within the rock would be enough to destroy the DNA.

Lets not also forget cosmic rays and their effect on interstellar debris(astronauts helmets showed micro holes caused by these rays under an electron microscope) :)

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

#68

Post by mywittyname »

warent wrote: post #11
jaynetics wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It dropped by a third, which is less than the difference between New York and La Paz, so I guess they could deal with it? I wonder how well their immune systems would handle modern germs, though...

It seems like they would be invulnerable to modern germs, because how could any germs exist which would thrive off hundred-million-year-old genomes

Dinosaurs are distant ancestors of birds, and we keep billions of birds in captivity all over the world, which has allowed for a whole host of pretty nasty diseases that affect birds to evolve. It would be surprising if none of those were capable of infecting dinosaurs.

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

#69

Post by TheMaskedCoder »

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...

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

#70

Post by ben_w »

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…

Hmm… I have a question inspired by your choice of phrases:

Is there a graph somewhere of Earth's mean sea level atmospheric pressure over time? Was it significantly different e.g. a billion years ago?

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