Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Real-Life 'Jurassic World' Dinosaurs May Be 10 Years Off


 
Jurassic World
 
The recently released movie “Jurassic World” stars a fictitious chicken-based dinosaur called the Indominous Rex that was created in a lab. Scientist claim ‘Jurassic World’ dinosaurs might not be far from real. Finding intact dinosaur DNA from fossils is highly unlikely, as the DNA in cells starts to come apart once the cell dies. However, dinosaur DNA is much more easily available than most people might think. Chickens and birds carry big chunks of dinosaur DNA than actual fossils. Alternation with chicken and bird DNA could possibly create what could be a miniature version of a dinosaur. Researchers from Yale and Harvard recently engineered a bird’s beak into a dinosaur looking mouth. However other body parts still need to be worked on, such as turning the wings back into arms and hands. This research is not only just for fun, but it can be a useful tool in being able to learn how to properly switch genes on and off which can be applied in the medical and nutritional fields.

This article was extremely interesting to read. Being able to alter chicken DNA into creating a miniature dinosaur seems too good to be true, however this article showed me that is not the case. I remember previously learning how fossilized mosquitoes could contain dinosaur DNA in the blood and be used to genetically engineer a dinosaur, however this might be too difficult to accomplish as DNA begins to fall apart once the cell dies. It seems as if the next few decades will be an interesting timeline for genetic breakthroughs.

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1 comment:

  1. Since dinosaur DNA is not present, how would the scientists know the traits of the dinosaurs? I understand that many fossils have been found to determine their bone structure, as well as their possible diets. But, many anatomical features of the miniature dinosaurs would just be left for speculation. I think it would be amazing to have a zoo filled with miniature dinosaurs, but would the modified creatures really be dinosaurs or would they be monsters which have a similar bone structure to fossils?

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