Jurassic Park comes true

Well: I didn't think this was possible, but apparently it is. Found through fark.com.

Jurassic Park comes true: How scientists are bringing dinosaurs back to life with the help of the humble chicken

By Zoe Brennan
Last updated at 9:51 PM on 13th June 2008

Deep inside the dusty university store room, three scientists struggle to lift a huge fossilised bone.

It is from the leg of a dinosaur.

For many years, this chunky specimen has languished cryptically on a shelf.

Interesting but useless — a forgotten relic of a lost age.

Now, with hammer and chisel poised, the academics from Montana State University in America gather round.

They are about to shatter this rare vestige of the past.

Why would they do such a thing?


Lost age: Scientists now believe it is possible to resurrect the dinosaur after the discovery of DNA relics in the wings and beaks of regular chickens

The answer is that they believe that this single fragment of a beast which stalked the earth untold millions of years ago could hold the key which will unlock the secrets of the dinosaurs.

Extraordinarily, they contend that it could lead to a real life Jurassic Park, where dinosaurs are once again unleashed on the world by scientists.

For just like in the hit Steven Spielberg movie, these men and women are intent on cracking the genetic code of the dinosaurs and opening the possibility of bringing them back to life.

Their remarkable quest will be revealed in a TV documentary, Dinosaurs: Return To Life, to be screened tomorrow.


Critter: In the Jurassic Park story dinosaurs were recreated using genetic code from mosquitos trapped in amber

It poses the question: will scientists ever be able to resurrect the dinosaur?

According to Jack Horner, professor of palaeontology at Montana State University, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

He says: ‘Of course we can bring them back to life. Their ancestral DNA is still present.

'The science is there. I don’t think there are any barriers, other than the philosophical.’

So just how have these scientists arrived at the point where they believe they might unleash the mysteries of a prehistoric lost world?

In order to understand their journey, we have to travel back a little less time — to 1992.

This was when Raul Cano, professor of microbiology at California Polytechnic State University, made the first attempt to extract DNA from insects almost as old as the dinosaurs that had been embedded in amber, a sticky tree sap which hardens into transparent orange stone.

Speculation about this possibility inspired the Jurassic Park story, in which an amber-trapped mosquito which sucked dinosaur blood unleashes its victims’ genetic code, allowing an obsessed billionaire to clone the species — with terrifying consequences.

In his real-life laboratory, Cano cracked the amber open with freezing cold liquid nitrogen, obtaining a sample of the insect inside.

Amazingly, he soon had a DNA sample from a 40 million-year-old bee.

Soon afterwards, academics at the American Museum of Natural History recovered DNA from an ancient termite.

It seemed that dinosaur DNA could soon be within reach of modern-day scientists.

But these early experiments ended in failure.

The scientists could not replicate their results, leading to the suspicion that the tiny recovered fragments were actually contaminants, perhaps from the researchers’ hair or clothing.


Fossil find: The discovery of the thigh bone of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in Montana, USA, revealed patterns only previously found in the bones of pregnant birds

The search for ancient DNA in amber was abandoned, and it seemed that the door to the past remained closed.

Since then however, researchers looking for prehistoric genetic fragments have managed to recover material from a 40,000-year-old mammoth, and from 45,000-year-old Neanderthal bones.

But still there were doubts that dinosaur DNA could have survived.

Then, in 2003, hopes were revived once again.

Horner, who acted as an advisor on the Jurassic Park films, made a remarkable discovery while his team were excavating a 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in Montana.

The site was so remote, the skeleton had to be removed by helicopter — the operation led to a huge thighbone splitting in two.

Horner gave a piece of the bone to one of his students, palaeontologist Mary Schweitzer.

Examining it, she noticed a strange structure inside the hard outer case.

It resembled a pattern found only in the bones of pregnant birds.


Experts say they have the ability to reach back to dinosaurs because their blueprints remains locked in modern-day birds

Puzzled, she asked her research assistant, Jennifer Wittmeyer, to dissolve the outer mineral layer.

Six hours later, there was a knock on the door.

‘Jennifer ran into the room saying, “You’re not going to believe this,”’ recalls Schweitzer.

‘When she picked up a small piece, it stretched and moved all over the place.

'So we knew we had something pretty unusual.’

The magnitude of the discovery was immediately apparent to the Montana University team — the material appeared to be well preserved flesh from a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Horner says: ‘It’s unimaginable to find soft tissue. It was just assumed that everything had been fossilised.’

More extraordinary yet, was the next find in neighbouring parts of the dinosaur bone.

‘Out popped the blood vessels,’ says Schweitzer.

‘I said, “I don’t believe it, that’s not possible”. It was one of those goose bump moments.’

Horner and his team knew that blood vessels should not exist in fossilised bone.

Many scientists believed organic matter from a living thing could not survive more than 100,000 years — let alone 68 million years.

Next came the team’s attempt to salvage DNA from other bones kept in the university storerooms.

They put the samples they collected under a powerful microscope.

Magnified 4,000 times, tiny structures unlikely to be mineralised fossil material were apparent.

They seemed to be the microscopic cells that built dinosaur bones — called osteocytes.

So far, so good.

But Horner came to believe that his team needed to turn their work on its head if they were to unleash the dinosaur.




Find this story at www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1026340/Jurassic-Park​-comes-true-How-scientists-bringing-dinosaurs-life-help-humbl​e-chicken.html



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