Have you watched the movie Jurassic Park?
In the movie, they extract dinosaurs’ DNA from fossilized ancient mosquitos in amber. Then, they combine the DNA with a frog to fill in the missing DNA information.
However, in reality, this process is impossible to bring back dinosaurs. It is impossible due to several reasons:
- DNA Degradation: The DNA stored in the mosquito is unstable and degraded over time. In other words, on high possibility, the bonds that hold the DNA base are broken down, which makes it impossible to reconstruct the DNA.
- Fossilization is rare: The probability of an organism being fossilized in an amber is really rare. Until today, only two fossilized mosquitos in amber are found. Furthermore, it is unsure whether they contain dinosaurs’ DNA or not.
- Contamination: The blood meal in a mosquito fossil would also contain the mosquito’s own DNA, as well as potentially DNA from other organisms trapped in the amber, making it difficult to isolate and identify dinosaur DNA.
Thus the process shown in the Jurrasic Park is fiction.
Then is Jurassic Park a totally fictional story?
However, the idea of manipulating DNA to bring dinosaurs is not wrong at all. Today, many scientists try to bring dinosaurs back by manipulating the DNA of birds. Birds are the closest animal species to dinosaurs. Also, birds contain some DNA that shows the same properties as dinosaurs. Therefore, by limiting and allowing the particular DNA, the dinosaurs’ physical characteristics can be presented on the birds.
Even though I explained it positively, there are still numerous obstacles to solve. Such as:
- Limited DNA Recovery: Even if traces of dinosaur DNA existed, the amounts would be extremely small and difficult to extract and analyze, according to The University of Adelaide.
- Cloning Challenges: Even if dinosaur DNA were recovered, the technology to clone or reconstruct a complete organism from such degraded DNA is not yet available.
In conclusion, bringing back dinosaurs as shown in Jurassic Park is not possible due to DNA degradation, the rarity of fossilized mosquitos, and contamination issues. While scientists are exploring bird DNA to recreate dinosaur-like traits, major challenges still prevent the full revival of dinosaurs.
