No Dinosaur Parks in Our Future

DNA can't survive more than a few million years to be cloned

A study by Western Australia's Murdoch University concluded that DNA cannot survive more than 6.8 million years - a finding that effectively rules out the tantalising prospect of replicating dinosaurs. Most dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago.

"We've been permanently plagued by this Jurassic Park myth that's been kicking around since the early nineties," lead researcher Mike Bunce told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"The myth is still out there. Even other scientists ask whether it is possible.''

Comments

[Raston Bot]

DAMNIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wait... what about arctic?? Disney didn't freeze that head for nothing.

[Calvin Coolidge]

Sequencing the original DNA from fossilized remains was always more fiction than science.

The real possibility involves reverse engineering. Take the spectrum of living, avian dinosaurs and work backwards. Separate out the mutations leading to new species and work out the common genes that must have belonged to the 'missing link' between dinosaurs and birds. Splice this together and implant the result into an Ostrich egg.

This doesn't bring a T-Rex back to life, but it avoids the messy issue of how you get from a computerized gene sequence to a living embryo, and it gives you a good approximation of the first dinosaur to take flight.