Jurrassic Park a future reality?

Mmm, tastes like chicken.

 

Anyone for a drumstick?

 

Excellent!

The homology to bird proteins is not surprising since birds (and cocrodiles) are the closest living descendants of dinosaurs. In fact, some taxonomists have tried to replace the family Avis, that includes all birds, for the family dinosauria to include dinosaurs, birds and crocs.

Of course, all this makes sense only if evolution happened....

Cheers!

 

Since we're allowed to eat cloned animals as long as they are so labeled.....maybe this is an answer to future food shortages?

I can see it now: KFT: tastes just like chicken, but not really.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Apr 12 2007, 10:25 PM) [snapback]422417[/snapback]</div>

I'm gonna need a bigger refrigerator for that doggie bag.

 

HolyKow!! Evoman!! soft flesh, Genetic material and viable DNA after 68 million years what are the odds? Or could he have been a mite younger than we always assumed? Say around 60 million years old? :lol: Perhaps someone with a mush more flexable mind than mine can explain this one too me?

Wildkow

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sunnyvale Prius @ Apr 12 2007, 10:31 PM) [snapback]422420[/snapback]</div>

I'm gonna wait until Costco has some tasters before I order my side of T-Rex!

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 12 2007, 11:20 PM) [snapback]422435[/snapback]</div>

Well, it wasn't genetic material. It wasn't DNA. It wasn't even proteins. It was broken pieces of what used to be proteins.

As to the odds of it lasting 68 million years, time isn't the key factor. Unlike radioactive isotopes, which do have fixed odds of decaying over any given period of time, with molecules the key factor is the condition. Molecules break down because of the temperature and especially the chemical environment. Given a dry, protected environment without any solvents or life forms to induce decay, there's no particular reason to think it unlikely that many molecules could last for millions of years or even longer.

And we don't just assume a date of 68 million years. We arrive at this date based on a preponderance of evidence. The finding of some organic molecules does not provide any evidence to contradict the evidence we already have of the 68 million year age.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sunnyvale Prius @ Apr 12 2007, 11:34 PM) [snapback]422439[/snapback]</div>

Mary Higby Schweitzer*, the discoverer of fossils with genetic material on or in it says that it was genetic material, proteins and I assume then that DNA was also within the soft material found. She also had an earlier discovery of dried blood on fossilized bones, announced it and was vilified by main stream science. Jack Horner also said that he thought other paleontologist could find soft material inside the bones of dino's if they bothered to break them open, something not often done to these rare and priceless finds. I think maybe you should reread the article that efusco linked as it also states that genetic material was found, because without it how else can you clone dino's? Furthermore, hate to criticize but your explanation talked about molecules not organic matter that managed to survive for 68 MILLION years!


Wildkow

p.s. MSU is in Bozeman Montana, my home town, it is the headquarters of paleontologist Jack Horner. I have met him briefly, when my mother was a volunteer for him. She had the honor of working on one of his T-Rex skulls. I saw it and although it was a small specimen it was still awesome.

* Mary H. Schweitzer, Jennifer L. Wittmeyer, John R. Horner, Jan K. Toporski, Science, Vol 307, Issue 5717, 25 March 2005, 1952-1955, “Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex†(Ev)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 13 2007, 02:51 AM) [snapback]422471[/snapback]</div>

I can't speak to what Schweitzer has said elsewhere, but the new article in Science magazine deals strictly with proteins and peptide sequences (peptides are protein fragments).

Unfortunately, the Yahoo article linked to by the OP is not very well written. The title and the first paragraph use the term "genetic material", though later when the article gets into detail it makes it clear it is talking about proteins, not DNA or RNA. The "genetic material" phrase probably got into the article because of a not completely technically aware writer or editor.

The New York Times article about the same story that I had read earlier in the day is more technically accurate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/science/...mgrwVWtuLe7zZUw

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 13 2007, 02:51 AM) [snapback]422471[/snapback]</div>

Can you provide a link to back up that claim? Remember that if she announced her claim and other scientists expressed scepticism, that doesn't count as vilification. That's a healthy scientific difference of opinion until the claim is more clearly demonstrated or refuted.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 13 2007, 02:51 AM) [snapback]422471[/snapback]</div>

Yes, the Yahoo article linked by efusco does use the phrase "genetic material" but that's slopiness on the part of the editor or writer for the wire service. The article nowhere uses the word "clone".

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 13 2007, 02:51 AM) [snapback]422471[/snapback]</div>

Molecules and organic matter are not different things. I stated quite clearly that I was talking about molecules of protein and protein fragments. That is, organic molecules.

 

can you get fries with that?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(huskers @ Apr 13 2007, 04:55 PM) [snapback]423036[/snapback]</div>

Hmmmmm, good question, didn't McDonald's have a Jurassic Meal with fries? LOL!

Here's a Jurassic Fart, the real reason the dinosaur's died out . . .

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 13 2007, 08:50 PM) [snapback]423103[/snapback]</div>

Good one kow.

The Complete T-Rex is a great book by Dr. Horner. Fascinating stuff. Apparently, those wee forearms could dead lift about 600lbs! One drumstick would feed more than 20. Probably more like 2000!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Apr 13 2007, 09:28 PM) [snapback]423134[/snapback]</div>

Thanks Tripp

What's the animated movie out or soon to be out where the T-Rex is trying to eat a little boy backed into a tight corner? The Mad Evolutionary Scientist (MES) demands to know why T-Rex hasn’t eaten the little boy yet and T-Rex replies “because you made me with a very big head and tiny little arms, grrrrr!â€

What a job Jack Horner has! I can't imagine its easy work but when you find something like T-Rex WoW! what a thrill! But then you got to dig the damn thing out with tiny little brushes, dental picks, spoons and somehow transport it out of some very remote locations! I may know that area where she made the discovery as I did some geo-location for an oil company though out the area in the mid to late 70's.

It seems as if most of the articles about this discovery don’t mention or gloss over the fact that the remains are 68 million years old. Also I have a source, not original but I am looking to track it down, about a creationist that went on the dig or a similar one in the same location and discovered that the rock they found the remains in was more like sediment or sand because he could move it with a small brush or teaspoon. He/she asked a student about this and was told by the student that they used to refer to it as sediment but was admonished by faculty to refer to it as rock since it was so old.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...t_uids=17148248

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...t_uids=15888409

http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/...ay/dinosaur.php


Here are three articles that are interesting reading the 1st and 3rd state that red blood cells were found as well as other genetic material. While Sunnyvale Prius is technically correct in his/her statements, SP is incorrect in the fact that genetic material has been found, as of this time, it simply has not been tested or analyzed for DNA or RNA. I wonder why that is? Also the second article has some really good stuff about dino eggs found which “contain skeletal remains and soft tissues of embryonic Titanosaurid dinosaurs. To preserve these labile embryonic remains, the rate of mineral precipitation must have superseded post-mortem degradative processes, resulting in virtually instantaneous mineralization of soft tissues. . .â€
Near instant fossilization how does that happen?
Wildkow

 

While decoding the DNA of dinosaurs would provide much useful information, it probably would leave us just as far as ever from cloning a dinosaur. This is because the cytoplasm of the egg is crucial in the early development of the zygote. While you can implant a fertilized egg in a foster mother of a closely-related species, you cannot merely insert complete DNA in the egg of another species and expect to reproduce the animal the DNA came from. There are specific proteins in the egg which regulate its early development, and there are organelles in the egg, each with its own DNA.

That dinoburger is no closer to reality now than it was a year ago.

On the other hand, you can always pretend. When I was very young, my step-father used to buy horsemeat (because it was cheaper) and then tell us it was who-knows-what exotic animal. For a 5-year-old that works.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Apr 12 2007, 10:25 PM) [snapback]422417[/snapback]</div>

In what way would cloned animals require fewer resources to raise for food than the animals we have now?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sunnyvale Prius @ Apr 13 2007, 03:25 AM) [snapback]422478[/snapback]</div>

Newspaper writers are notoriously inaccurate. How many newspaper articles about the Prius demonstrate the least understanding of the car? Very few! Read a newspaper article about any subject you have personal knowledge of, and you are likely to find it full of errors. TV is no better.

 

What is all this nonsense about a 68 million year old T-Rex? Fossil evidence shows that T-Rex lived on earth only 5,000 years ago.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 14 2007, 04:01 AM) [snapback]423180[/snapback]</div>

it's Meet the Robinson's, by Disney. And there's no "MES" in the show - just a really ticked off guy who steals a time machine a guy created so he can go back in time and destroy that guys life. The dinosaur he brought to the future with that machine in order to kill the guy when he was a kid.

So no mad scientist involved. It's really not all that unbelievable a plot line

 

I think there still could be a t-rex or two in my area. It is pretty isolated around here. They still have not found big foot. :blink:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(huskers @ Apr 14 2007, 06:22 PM) [snapback]423429[/snapback]</div>

Maybe the T-rex ate him.