Steven Spielberg's film adaptation of Michael Crichton's techno-thriller novel, Jurassic Park (pub. 1990), struck awe into the minds of many keen audiences at the time of its release. I myself could not help but contemplate just how incredible it would be if dinosaurs - who walked the earth many tens of thousands of years ago - could return to life and walk it once more, as shown in the film. Hypothetically, the possibilities were endless if something like that were to occur. Imagine your very own theme park, exhibiting newly-resurrected prehistoric creatures! Not even the San Diego Zoo or the British Museum of Natural History would be able to rival such grandeur. But then the film reminded us of the implication of the actions of the scientists who had brought the dinosaurs back - it manifested itself in the bloody disembowelment and evisceration of many an unlucky human at the claws of the film's velociraptors (we won't touch on the factual inaccuracies on the film's depiction of them yet!), and all of us who have seen the film can remember the bone-chilling crunch when the fearsome tyrannosaurus rex (commonly shortened the well-known term "t-rex") closed his jaws around the unlucky lawyer. And, no, to those of you who have not seen the film, that is not a joke the scriptwriters came up with.
However, all these thrills and chills were soon overshadowed by a question posed by many in the audience, "is this actually possible? Can dinosaurs really be brought back to life?" With the film and novel's magnificent depiction of science, some may have indeed been fooled into believing such a mind-wracking feat could be accomplished by so little a team of scientists. (If I recall, I spotted just over ten different scientists working at the InGen facility in the film. A little short on funding, Mr. John Hammond?) Still, what about the hundreds of real scientists whose eyes had been caught by the film?
Perhaps the most notable - and one of the first - scientists to have applied his brainpower to tackling the possibility of a genetic reconstruction of dinosaurs would be the microbiologist Dr. Raul Cano, currently a professor at the Biological Sciences Department of California Polytechnic State University. In 1992, Dr. Cano innovated with a technique he believed could be used to extract the DNA of prehistoric specimens from fossil 'containers', such as amber - just like in the film. Dr. Cano noted that amber fossils - which are pieces of fossilized tree resin - contained prehistoric insects that are as old as the dinosaurs, and stated that this could be a step towards the dinosaurs' genetic reconstruction. Why? Some insects, such as mosquitos and fleas, feed off the blood of larger fauna. Many thousands of years ago, there were counterparts to these insects, which could mean, if the correct insect is found, so will a tiny sample of a larger specie's blood be found. Dr. Cano's technique consists of the following steps:
• Sterilize the amber, killing off any bacteria or other micro-organisms that could prove destructive
• Freeze the amber with liquid nitrogen, hardening it and making it far easier to break or shatter
• Meticulously and carefully drill into the amber, cracking it open and exposing the fossilized organic tissue within
• Add chemical compounds to the tissue, which will duplicate or multiply even the tiniest fragment of DNA to make the DNA detectable on a gel.
Should this technique prove successful after an attempt, it means that the DNA - unique genetic material and encoding which is nearly impossible to find of any prehistoric specie - can be gleaned from the fossil, which, in this case, is the most essential step that must be made in the grand, fantastic scheme of recreating a dinosaur specie. Interestingly enough, using this method, Dr. Cano managed to successfully extract the DNA of an ancient bee. The antediluvian insect's body had been encased in amber, providing the perfect test run for Dr. Cano's technique, which proved effective.
After taking note of his success, scientists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, U.S.A, decided to attempt a DNA salvage of their own, using the method developed by Dr. Cano. Once again, the microbiologist's method proved successful, allowing the scientists to duplicate and salvage the DNA of an ancient termite, which, much like Dr. Cano's bee, had been encased in amber.
With these successes in mind, it would be accurate to say that duplicating, replicating and salvaging the DNA of prehistoric fauna could very well be possible. However, one must keep in mind a grim (or, for those who are not keen advocates of this endeavour, refreshing) reality: despite the above successes, these salvages were performed on ancient insects, not dinosaurs.
In spite of this, Dr. Akira Iritani, professor emeritus of the Japanese Kyoto University, located in Kyoto, Japan, is spearheading a noteworthy scientific endeavour: he and his team plan to clone, or, in essence, recreate, a woolly mammoth; a pachyderm believed to have been extinct for thousands of years. Much like Dr. Cano and the scientists at the American Museum of Natural History with the case of dinosaurs, this team of ingenious Japanese scientists hopes to resurrect a long-extinct specie, and, interestingly enough, hopes to do so within five or six years. Thus far, minor steps have already been taken, including a mostly-complete mapping of the creature's DNA (obtained from the discovery of keratin in the hair of a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth body), but actually extracting the DNA from the frozen specimen is proving extremely difficult and tedious, and the team are working to overcome the obstacle. Still, the team appears to be maintaining an optimistic and resolute attitude. Should this endeavour prove successful, and a woolly mammoth is actually cloned, it could prove to be an invaluable stepping stone towards the palaeontologist's holy grail: living dinosaurs.
Once again, though, in all fairness, optimism must be contrasted with scepticism: Time magazine, which took note of this topic, wrote that it is physically impossible to clone or resurrect a dinosaur. To support this statement, the researcher pointed to the claim that there are "pseudo-genes" - that is, obsolete "blueprints" - in the DNA of dinosaur fossils, which make replication or manipulation of the DNA impossible. However, whether these alleged "pseudo-genes" exist or not is debatable, according to some biologists, as it would appear that what is regarded as "pseudo-genes" could very well just be non-encoding DNA, which would still find some importance.
All in all, it would appear that there is an ongoing conflict between biologists regarding the possibility of cloning or resurrecting dinosaurs. And it's not necessarily about the ethics of the issue. Whilst it is viewed as improbable, there are still those who believe it might still be feasible to recreate dinosaurs through manipulation of gleaned DNA, and then there are those who are more skeptical. Currently, the scientific community seems to favour the opinion of the latter.
So, in conclusion, it must be asked: will Crichton's fantasy of dinosaurs being brought back to life ever really come to fruition? In our lifetime, will we get to see the theme park, reminiscent of Jurassic Park, in which we can see the giants of ages past walking once again? Currently, the answer is unclear, if not unlikely, much to the dismay of many enthusiasts. Still, with recent scientific advances, and the firm attitudes of scientists still willing to be innovative in this regard, the fact that "where there is a will, there is a way" must be acknowledged.
Bibliography & Acknowledgements
• Will We Clone A Dinosaur?, by Matt Ridley (April 2000); published by Time [Link]
• Recreating Dinosaurs, uploaded by Discovery TV (February 2009) [Link]
• DNA: The Secret of Life, by James Watson & Andrew Berry (August 2004, Barnes & Noble)
• Japanese Researchers Announce Plan To Resurrect Woolly Mammoth Within Five Years, by Dan Nosowitz (January 2011) [Link]
• Jurassic Park Logo (c) Universal Studios
• Photo Of Amber (c) Amberabg [Link]
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