Recreating the Dinosaur

[Ken Carman]

The link I'm going to send you to has several links embedded in it. It also asks important questions like, "If we could recreate the dinosaur, should we?" And... what does this say about the Evolution vs. Creationist debate?

Click HERE.

[tengers]

Personally, I have always thought that there is a place for the Wooly Mammoth in this world, so if they could make a few of those, that would be nice. There's probably a few others too!

[The Black Ghost]

While Im sure this is a hypothetical question only, i would just like to point out that it isnt possible to recreate the dinosaurs--even in theory-- by any method discovered to date, and probably ever.


Woolly mamoths are a possibility though, and I think we'll see one soon.


I dont know about it though, Ive always seen the dangers of cloning and "creation" abilities, advanced genetic engineering, but I see how interesting it is to think about. Of course, we have no idea what effects introducing extinct species back into the world will do, they probably wont live in the wild, so we'll basically be making pets for zoos. I think the greatest danger is the mental one--the thought that we can create anything without thought, cost, or consequence. And once we start this, it'll just keep going until who knows what we do with that power.

[tengers]

Never say never

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: The Black Ghost While Im sure this is a hypothetical question only, i would just like to point out that it isnt possible to recreate the dinosaurs--even in theory-- by any method discovered to date, and probably ever. Woolly mamoths are a possibility though, and I think we'll see one soon. I dont know about it though, Ive always seen the dangers of cloning and "creation" abilities, advanced genetic engineering, but I see how interesting it is to think about. Of course, we have no idea what effects introducing extinct species back into the world will do, they probably wont live in the wild, so we'll basically be making pets for zoos. I think the greatest danger is the mental one--the thought that we can create anything without thought, cost, or consequence. And once we start this, it'll just keep going until who knows what we do with that power.

This post was inspired by an NPR interview with the author. He said that they had the ability, in a limited sense now, to turn genes off and on. When a chicken, for example, forms it actually has five fingers for a while... but a gene shuts that down and the fingers disapear and it all forms together into wings.

I'm doing this from memory, so please excuse any errors.

According to the author the chicken is a directly linked to some dinosaurs. The more we learn how to shut genes on and off, the more likely we'll be able to do this.

If you're lucky, maybe you'll find a link to the interview at NPR. I tried but had limited time.

I think what inspired me the most is how this mirrored Sci Fi in some ways.

A brief comment regarding my own questions; no matter; ethical or not, if this is true keeping Pandora's box closed is probably going to be impossible. We may be able to hold it off, but as with all advances... should we?

[Dandelo]

Recreating dinosaurs? I'm so sorry, but I have to say it...

HERE THE COME, THOUGH THE GLASS!

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: Dandelo Recreating dinosaurs? I'm so sorry, but I have to say it... HERE THEY COME, THOUGH THE GLASS!

I'll be hiding in the kitchen amongst the pots and pans, under the counter, just in case the Raptor (ture) comes. Ssssshhhhh!

Whatever you do, don't hide in the outhouse.

[Conan]

Great idea lets create a huge Jurassic park on Fiji, have it staffed by the locals ( good employment opportunitys) and send all the worlds criminals there as live food for the dinasaurs.
Millions of tourists will pay to go see this( massive economic boost for Fijis economy) and good reality shows and betting markets can be made of the criminals chances of surviving half an hour when released into the large enclosed open carnivour area, or in the 100,000 capacity raptor arena.

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: Fallen Angel Great idea lets create a huge Jurassic park on Fiji, have it staffed by the locals ( good employment opportunitys) and send all the worlds criminals there as live food for the dinasaurs. Millions of tourists will pay to go see this( massive economic boost for Fijis economy) and good reality shows and betting markets can be made of the criminals chances of surviving half an hour when released into the large enclosed open carnivour area, or in the 100,000 capacity raptor arena.

Can we add more than a few talk show hosts and the most annoying ad pitchmen and women to the mix? There's plenty food to be had between Limbaugh and the ex-Hughes net lady alone. (You know she's smug and annoying in,oh, so many other ways when Ken suggests adding a redhead to the food chain. The new one's not bad at all, though I might add whomever decides to play such ads over and over. I think I may even know her.) And if you think this is a Liberal vs, Con problem, I would toss in the very annoying "Left" Lynn Samuels on Sirius for free; except the dinos would probably just barf her back up. Poor things. I understand. I just have to hear her grating screech to feel my supper coming back up to greet the piehole.

Save the lawyers. Yeah, they're a pain, but even W and Limbaugh must know they come in handy when the stupidity of our litigious and over-eager private prison populating society comes aknockin.

[Walrus]

Quote by: Fallen Angel Great idea lets create a huge Jurassic park on Fiji, have it staffed by the locals ( good employment opportunitys) and send all the worlds criminals there as live food for the dinasaurs. Millions of tourists will pay to go see this( massive economic boost for Fijis economy) and good reality shows and betting markets can be made of the criminals chances of surviving half an hour when released into the large enclosed open carnivour area, or in the 100,000 capacity raptor arena.

Romans used to do something like that with Christians and lions ... I believe it was quite popular.

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: Walrus Romans used to do something like that with Christians and lions ... I believe it was quite popular.

So NOW I know who the Beatles were referring to when they sand "I am the..."

Yes, but these guys will be even hungrier than the lions were. Perhaps we can feed them all the people responsible for ads that repeat over and over on TV: especially right after the last one? We've now achieved an endless food supply! Shall we move on to the perpetual motion machine, or would that be whatever people impregnating deity who is responsible for supplying winners of The Darwin Awards?

[Yarn]

I really need to get to my homework, so i'll make this short.

I think the way that they may bring back a wholly mamoth is by finding an intact mamoth nucleus and injecting it into an an extant elephant species egg cell after removing that cell's original nucleus. They would then implant the altered egg cell into an elephant's womb, and if all went according to plan, some months later, they would have a baby wholly mamoth.

The Black Ghost:

so we'll basically be making pets

I'd much prefer to have a pet trilobite. Wouldn't you?

[SteveMcKay]

Horner hosted a show based on the book Ken's link refers to. Discovery Channel Dinosaurs: Return to Life

There is surprisingly little information I could find about the show online. It aired in the U.S. sometime last month.

It was very interesting. As Ken mentioned they take a chicken embryo and inject a virus that turns on or off a gene and presto they get a chicken with teeth, scales, a tail, or arms and fingers. They only discussed doing one gene on/off switch at a time and never mention letting the embryo go to term. They also mentioned that with a few years of tinkering and an Emu as a starting point that there is no technical reason a Velociraptor facsimile could not be created.


To the question of should it be done. Well to be honest I am kind of a mad scientist type. You all need to thank your lucky stars that I do not have the money of Bill Gates otherwise there would be Chickosaurs, Emuciraptors, Humanzees, and maybe even Hobbits and Orcs running around.

Seriously. The ability to do this type of genetic tinkering is only going to increase. There is no reason technically to stop us from eventually sitting down in front of a BioCAD system and designing nearly any type of organism we can think of... Just like we do now with electronics, silicon, software, and other engineering that we have somewhat mastered the core functionality of.

As our knowledge increases new and efficient "manufacturing" techniques for these organisms should also mature along the lines of today's computers, processors, aircraft, etc.

When that mature BioCAD/CAM system is created and matured it will be every bit as sophisticated as today's CAD/CAM tools (of course probably more so since I am looking a decade or more out)... with libraries grouped by function, starter templates, reusable snippets, simulations, standardized manufacturing interfaces, etc, etc. Rapid prototyping techniques might even allow you to create "preproduction" versions in weeks or even days .

Imagine what you would create if you could... using every little genetic snippet of every organism on the planet. Of course you would simulate it and run error checks, etc to make sure it functioned reasonably well (there are always bugs even if you're designing a bug). Imagine then shipping over the CAM file to your desktop incubator or, if the creature is larger than a bread box, to the BioProto company down the street. After an appropriate incubation out comes whatever your little heart can dream up. What would you create?

Scary and, yet, somewhat exciting isn't it?.

Quote by: Ken Carman We may be able to hold it off, but as with all advances... should we?

Hard to say. I am less concerned about (re)creating macroorganisms as I am engineering new viruses, bacteria, etc. I can also see a lot of benefits as far as engineering drought tolerant food crops, new food sources such as biofarmed steaks (not cows, steaks), pollution scavengers, etc. We could probably even engineer life that can colonize mars... oops there's that mad scientist part of me again.

[Goyboy]

Are we certain that dinosaurs are completely extinct?

Sure, the tyrannosaurus, the apatosaurus, the pachycephalosaurus, the edmontosaurus, the anchisaurus, the herrerasaurus, the lufengosaurus and the mussaurus are extinct, but I thought I saw a thesaurus recently.


Seriously, wouldn't more than genetic engineering need to be done in order to bring back dinosaurs? Wouldn't we have to also create environments that can sustain the lives of dinosaurs?

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: Goyboy Are we certain that dinosaurs are completely extinct? Sure, the tyrannosaurus, the apatosaurus, the pachycephalosaurus, the edmontosaurus, the anchisaurus, the herrerasaurus, the lufengosaurus and the mussaurus are extinct, but I thought I saw a thesaurus recently.

Being a bit bookish today, are we?

Seriously, wouldn't more than genetic engineering need to be done in order to bring back dinosaurs? Wouldn't we have to also create environments that can sustain the lives of dinosaurs?

I think it may depend on the dino. Dino might be possible, but he'd probably kack himself because he missed Fred and Wilma.

Seriously, it probably would depend on what dinosaur. And I think there may be places on the planet close enough to the conditions to work, especially for meat eaters. We just need to find enough people to feed them We've already offered several viable options if you look at past posts.

No, I do believe "doable," in that sense. I'm not sure the vegans would need. Depends on if the nature of what they would be eating would be close enough to what was. I would think basic plant biology wouldn't be all that different. Of course I would never claim all dinos would work out. But the Suckosaurus might try running for office. Couldn't do much worse than most of our pols.

[Rog]

Quote by: Ken Carman The link I'm going to send you to has several links embedded in it. It also asks important questions like, "If we could recreate the dinosaur, should we?" And... what does this say about the Evolution vs. Creationist debate? Click HERE.

What would be interesting is if they did turned on the gene or recreated a dino with new founded live DNA, the new created dyno did not look like what the scientist had though or draw the dyno to look like. Would the scientist discard the experiment as a fail because the the new offspring does not look like what he dream or would he just say it did not work?

[Goyboy]

Quote by: Ken Carman And I think there may be places on the planet close enough to the conditions to work, especially for meat eaters.

Well, Washington, D.C. comes to mind . . .

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: Goyboy Well, Washington, D.C. comes to mind . . .

Personally some places near and in NYC, or Music Row come to mind, but that's kind of personal.

If we let them loose in Hollywood we might actually get some refreshing creativity. No more Beverly Hillbilly remake into a movie type fare'. Personally I'd open the door to the dressing room of Simon. Anyone who makes a living being cruel might make a great appetizer. Hope Velocaraptors can take Prevacid. Poor little buggers. He probably tastes like a rotting bear whose been eating garbage and his own... all his life.

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: Rog What would be interesting is if they did turned on the gene or recreated a dino with new founded live DNA, the new created dyno did not look like what the scientist had though or draw the dyno to look like. Would the scientist discard the experiment as a fail because the the new offspring does not look like what he dream or would he just say it did not work?

That brings up an interesting topic. How many of our preconceived notions would mess up the attempt? Once we thought they were cold blooded, if I remember right. We had Brontosaurus, who has been split... (don't get me started: I know that's a joke in the making) ...into first: Apatosaurus and and sort of several others. (Weren't they all once thought to be Bronto? I think so if I remember right.)

[Conan]

Quote by: Walrus Romans used to do something like that with Christians and lions ... I believe it was quite popular.

Theres actually not much evidence that the Romans threw the Christians to the lions, just a popular myth.