Are We Closer To A Real Life Jurassic Park Than We Think?

[jakeXT]

We’ve all seen the movie Jurassic Park (I assume). The method to the madness of bringing living, breathing dinosaurs back to life in that movie, was to find prehistoric pieces of amber with bugs perfectly preserved inside and extract their blood — assuming that they’ve fed on dinosaurs and contain their DNA. Though it’s likely that scientists have attempted to try this, it’s not something that many expect to actually work. Now comes word that a scientist in Canada has a whole new plan to possibly bring dinosaurs back to life.

Canada Research Chair in Macro Evolution at Montreal’s McGill University, Hans Larsson, believes the fact that dinosaurs are ancestors of birds may just hold the key. He believes that while a chicken is its embryonic stages, he can literally go in and alter this, change that, and replicate what once was, hundreds of millions of years ago.

Larsson has been studying the evolution of birds for a decade now, and truly believes that in time, he could find a way to do the unthinkable: hatch a live prehistoric creature.

...

http://geeksofdoom.com/2009/08/30/are-we-closer-to-a-real-life-jurassic-park-than-we-think/

[BlooInBloo]

1. No.

[Auggie]

2. Hatch a live prehistoric creature? Been done -- Pat Buchanan

[dgibby]

14. Perfect!

:spray: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :spray:

[xchrom]

3. that would be SO cool. -- but i wanna stand way over there if it's t rex. nt

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

5. I will put up money for a Members-Only GOP Dinosaur Petting Zoo. (nt)

[Auggie]

6. LOL

Excellent

[xchrom]

7. how do i donate to that! nt

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

4. I hope so!

I'm totally getting one of these guys as a pet:

[tridim]

8. Jeff Goldblum is rolling in his grave.

[brendan120678]

11. Nah...I heard he smashed to pieces...

when he fell off of that cliff.

[frogmarch]

18. Jeff Goldblum isn't dead.

http://screencrave.com/2009-06-25/report-jeff-goldblum-has-died/

Excerpt:

Jeff Goldblum is not dead.

Rumors hit the ‘net Thursday afternoon that New Zealand Police were reporting that actor Jeff Goldblum had fallen to his death on the set of a new movie. Thankfully, the report turned out to be an Internet hoax.

Police National Head Quarters in New Zealand told 3 News they knew nothing about the claims and have not had any reports of such an incident in Northland. They say similar rumors were circulating six to eight weeks ago and believe it’s false information.

The New Zealand Film Commission also told 3 News that they are unaware of Jeff Goldblum currently filming anything in the country. He’s not.

On a day when both Farrah Fawcett died and Michael Jackson died , one might say it was the perfect opportunity for a scam artist to re-hash an old hoax about an actor falling to their death. It’s been reported that every few years a rumor gets started on the Internet about a celebrity dying in New Zealand. First it was Tom Hanks in 2006, then Tom Cruise in 2008.

[tridim]

20. Thanks, that was the joke.

:)

[Richard D]

9. Then Jesus can return!

[tularetom]

10. Impossible because the earth is only 6000 years old you see

Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs and Noah's Ark sailed down the Grand Canyon in the big flood.

It's really so much easier to buy this theory - doesn't require you to think. In fact it discourages thought.

[laconicsax]

12. Obvious question of accurate science reporting:

How much has been left out or changed?

To the best of my understanding, accomplishing this would require sampling DNA from birds belonging to both Maniraptora and Aves and using it to reconstruct the DNA from their last common ancestor, which would have been a theropod dinosaur. This is a lot more complicated than just tinkering with a chicken embryo willy-nilly as the article implies.

[jakeXT]

16. They cite this article and talk about an AFP interview

Hans Larsson, the Canada Research Chair in Macro Evolution at Montreal's McGill University, said he aims to develop dinosaur traits that disappeared millions of years ago in birds.

Larsson believes by flipping certain genetic levers during a chicken embryo's development, he can reproduce the dinosaur anatomy, he told AFP in an interview.

Though still in its infancy, the research could eventually lead to hatching live prehistoric animals, but Larsson said there are no plans for that now, for ethical and practical reasons -- a dinosaur hatchery is "too large an enterprise."

"It's a demonstration of evolution," said Larsson, who has studied bird evolution for the last 10 years.

http://www.physorg.com/news170426405.html

[laconicsax]

17. That's what's been changed.

Larsson wants to reproduce dinosaur anatomy by creating hybrids of a sort--not creating an exact reconstruction of an extinct species as the original article implies.

[AnneD]

13. Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts.....

Then later there's running and screaming.

[miyazaki]

15. I'm thinking those Brontosaurus Burgers might be pretty good. n/t

[Nihil]

21. This way they're almost guaranteed to taste like chicken! (n/t)

:-)

[frogmarch]

19. Interesting concept, but I don't think

it'll happen any time soon. The procedure would be costly and very time consuming, and because of the guesswork involved, the end result would be only a reasonable facsimile of the dino.