FTFY.
Jurassic Park from Temu (Pleistocene park) currently only Dire Wolves
- Thread starter Minusorange
- Start date
Meatball do ya in the mean time?
Meatball from long-extinct mammoth created by food firm
Exclusive: Australian company resurrects flesh of lost species to demonstrate potential of meat grown from cellswww.theguardian.com
I keep looking for them in Aldi and Iceland but no luck yet.
Who do you think runs these multi-billion dollar research companies?
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 8,347
my university dissertation 30 years ago was about analysing specimens trapped in amber and whether any DNA could have survived that could be usable to sequence.
spoiler alert......... it couldn't. There were a bunch of papers at the time in decent journals but sadly none of them held up. The trace DNA they found and sequenced were likely contaminants from their own labs etc, amber is amazing for preserving but there are limits. I did conclude that dodos from storage or a mammoth dug out of permafrost would be a better bet albeit still a stretch and anything from it would be a hybrid.
dire wolves never occurred to me however
spoiler alert......... it couldn't. There were a bunch of papers at the time in decent journals but sadly none of them held up. The trace DNA they found and sequenced were likely contaminants from their own labs etc, amber is amazing for preserving but there are limits. I did conclude that dodos from storage or a mammoth dug out of permafrost would be a better bet albeit still a stretch and anything from it would be a hybrid.
dire wolves never occurred to me however
Last edited:
My cat hunts and kills things and then doesn't eat them. Plenty of other predators exhibit this behaviour. Are they not natural too?
I don't really get your argument, it sounds existential, nihilistic and at its core it sounds like it comes from a place of depression. Constantly telling yourself that you, your friends, your family and everyone you know is a 'blight on this planet' is silly. If we didn't exist, some other species would become top dog, and would abuse its dominant position, the same way we do. It is completely natural.
Last edited:
I think we need to agree to disagree, I'm not sure the crocodile or lion would evolve to split the atom and create widescale destruction but I guess with us being 'top dog' we've held back the progress of other species.
Thanks for suggesting I'm depressed but I can assure you I'm fine.
Thanks for suggesting I'm depressed but I can assure you I'm fine.
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 8,347
unfortunately no other animal has been able to, shall we say shape the planet to their will like we have. initially we did not know the long term damage we were doing, ultimately to our own long term survival but even now we do, we do not have the wisdom (as a population) to do anything to stop it.
that AFAIK is unique to us. we are too intelligent i guess for our own good. We (or some of us anyway) have the ability to literally end life on the planet and that is a scary thing and not silly to be worried about that imo. what other animal will deliberately kill itsself just to inflict harm on other members of its species (unless it is as a direct attempt to protect its progeny) and whilst it may seem unlikely to happen, all it takes is someone with access to such destruction to have the mentality of someone like that and it could be game over for just about everything
is it silly to bring back direwolves or dodos or mammoths? perhaps (and T Rex isnt coming back even if it would be kind of cool)
but this knowledge may be needed to bring back bees, or some other vital pollinator or perhaps other species of animals which we "accidentally" wipe out and if so that is a good thing.
As with everything it needs to be carefully controlled...... as with any genetic manipulation there are very obvious dangerous abuses of such knowledge but that has always been the case.
that AFAIK is unique to us. we are too intelligent i guess for our own good. We (or some of us anyway) have the ability to literally end life on the planet and that is a scary thing and not silly to be worried about that imo. what other animal will deliberately kill itsself just to inflict harm on other members of its species (unless it is as a direct attempt to protect its progeny) and whilst it may seem unlikely to happen, all it takes is someone with access to such destruction to have the mentality of someone like that and it could be game over for just about everything
is it silly to bring back direwolves or dodos or mammoths? perhaps (and T Rex isnt coming back even if it would be kind of cool)
but this knowledge may be needed to bring back bees, or some other vital pollinator or perhaps other species of animals which we "accidentally" wipe out and if so that is a good thing.
As with everything it needs to be carefully controlled...... as with any genetic manipulation there are very obvious dangerous abuses of such knowledge but that has always been the case.
Last edited:
Sharks with frickin' laser beams!!
Seems like latest studies put a theoretical ~7 million years as the cutoff for DNA preserved under natural conditions if they were lab perfect combination of cold and mineral stabilisation, etc. in reality it is usually less than 1/3rd that. But very freak conditions (which actually the events that supposedly killed off the dinosaurs would increase the chances of happening albeit not in a very meaningful way as one mechanism is extremely freak occurrence involving igneous rock) could potentially extend that by 10x putting the last dinosaurs in reach if that ever happened - unfortunately if such specimens do exist they'd be like looking for a needle in a haystack in some of the least accessible places on the planet - pretty much impossible to find except by pure chance or if somehow you already knew where they were to go in an extract.
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 8,347
from memory (remember my thesis was 30 years ago) one of the issues is amber is slightly acidic, and over long periods of time it is enough to break down the bonds of the DNA and as such any fragments you may find would be so fragmented that the chances of being able to assemble them together are practically nil.
My experience is a little out of date tho am still somewhat in the field but i do have experience of sequencing and assembling DNA sequences as was working on the human (and other) genome projects for 20 years.
a huge part of me would love to be wrong, not for any useful reason but who wouldnt want to see some many million years old extinct animal recreated..... but.... lets just say i think the UK is more likely to win the eurovision song contest than that happen
also.... 7 million years ago is not what most of us would want to see anyway... sure there would be some cool stuff...... but it wouldnt be a T Rex or a Steggy or a diplodocus (my 3 favourite dinosaurs as a kid) more likely just some early horse like animal or something
My experience is a little out of date tho am still somewhat in the field but i do have experience of sequencing and assembling DNA sequences as was working on the human (and other) genome projects for 20 years.
a huge part of me would love to be wrong, not for any useful reason but who wouldnt want to see some many million years old extinct animal recreated..... but.... lets just say i think the UK is more likely to win the eurovision song contest than that happen
also.... 7 million years ago is not what most of us would want to see anyway... sure there would be some cool stuff...... but it wouldnt be a T Rex or a Steggy or a diplodocus (my 3 favourite dinosaurs as a kid) more likely just some early horse like animal or something
Last edited:
There are other compounds/minerals which can also stabilise DNA with or without amber being present - the problem is the chances of the various factors happening in combination - especially as some of the processes which might preserve organic matter for extreme lengths of time also individually have a like 99.9999% chance of destroying it instead.