Susan+Grable

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 * Probe: Vol. 4 - Biological Evolution Pg. 99**

DINO DNA: CAN WE REALLY BRING BACK DINOSAURS?

In a word, "No". They are extinct and extinction is forever. Here are some reasons why we cannot bring back the dinosaurs.

Even though amber preserves specimens, such as insects, quite well, in order to use DNA in any kind of fertilization or cloning experiment or technique, the DNA must be **//intact//**. There cannot be missing pieces to the DNA strand because these cannot be repaired with portions of another specie's DNA. DNA does, in fact, degrade over time, even in amber.

Consider this situation: Today, when police detectives attempt to solve a "cold case" using blood and human secretions taken at a crime scene that occurred many years ago, the DNA in the sample is often too degraded to perform standard tests and pathologists must use Mitochondrial DNA tests instead. Dinosaur DNA that is at least 65 million years old would be too degraded to use with any kind of fertilization or cloning techniques modern technology has available at this time.

Even if the dinosaur DNA could be extracted from an insect preserved in amber, the extraction would have to be 100% perfect and pure, with no mixing of the dinosaur DNA and that of the insect.

Scientists could not work with a DNA chain that has any gaps. Another species cannot be use to repair broken chains. So, //frogs// could not be used to repair dinosaur DNA.

Even if, hypothetically, dinosaur DNA could be found intact and in pristine condition, implantation must be in a viable and living egg. Since there are no living dinosaurs we would not have compatible egg and cytoplasm in which to implant genetic material.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL SETTING OF THE **JURASSIC PARK** MOVIES

Realistically, an isolated tropical island could never support the nutritional requirements of all the dinosaurs featured in a Jurassic Park setting. One can only imagine what an entire herd of Brachiosaurus would do to the flora on a single island! Trees would be stripped of foliage and could never rebound quick enough to support the population that denuded it. Plant-eaters would fail and their populations decrease. Meat-eaters would then begin to suffer the effects of herbivore decline. Consider also, the fact that dinosaurs were used to eating specific kinds of food. Would they even adapt to a tropical island with vegetation not present at the time they originally lived? Would Jurassic plants have to be cloned also in order to feed the growing population of dinosaurs on the island? In short: there would be too little food, not the right kind of food, and too much competition for what little food that was available. Unless dinosaur populations were controlled, food artificially replenished somehow and the dinosaurs truly unable to reproduce (as was the original plan in Jurassic Park I), a dinosaur theme park could never work.

Another consideration is a dinosaur's lack of resistance to viruses and bacteria living today. Unless they were able to adapt quickly to an environment quite different from the one that existed 65 million years ago, dinosaurs would surely sicken and die. Even in our modern world, primitive tribes lost large percentages of their population after being visited by "civilized people" who exposed them to germs they had never come in contact with before.

One last thing to consider is how we would keep the dinosaurs on that island and prevent them from ever leaving. Remember the disasters in the second film (The Lost World) when greed got the better of the human race and T.rex was brought right into the arms of civilization? Remember the end of Jurassic Park III as the pterodactyls are flying away from the island to destinations unknown. If "life finds a way" how could one be sure that evolution would not provide a dinosaur with a way to get off the island and travel elsewhere even if it were a baby dinosaur hijacking a ride on a log floating to a nearby island?

Star Trek Television Series: **Probe: Vol.1 - Talking About Gravity - pg. 97** On the TV series Star Trek, chief engineer Mr. Scott was always saying he couldn't defy the laws of physics whenever Captain Kirk insisted they power-up to Warp 9.

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