If you were someone captivated by the movie Jurassic Park’-as I did as just a child-you might certainly have spent, at least a single day in your life, dreaming what it is like to see living dinosaurs. It’s so fascinating to think of those giant creatures coming back to walk on this planet. There is no better way to see a miracle to happen than to see a living dinosaur upon the face of the Earth again. No matter how much some argue, each and every human, who knows of dinosaurs, thinks that by some means they can be brought back to life. The only problem is whether it will happen within our lifetimes or not.
Scientists around the world had been thinking of the same issue for decades now. Is it possible to bring back a dinosaur? Most of them think it’s a possibility, but the problem is how? Genetics are fast improving that cloning of various creature had been done. It is quite clear that cloning of a human is possible too and some even say that in some unknown laboratory, it might have already been done. Whether or not a human has been cloned, cloning of a dinosaur is far more complicated than cloning any existing animal. There are few well known challenges that have to be tackled in much a process.
FINDING THE DINOSAUR DNA
DNA is the base stone of genetic research and any attempt to clone any creature first requires finding the right DNA. In the movie Jurassic Park’ the DNA came from mosquitoes embedded in amber with dinosaur blood. It is just fiction and a reality of finding any usable DNA in such a way is highly unlikely. But I may still not say it is impossible, since it is known practice in the scientific world, never to say anything impossible, as many if those once impossible things had been already done. Still in reality, DNA found in such a manner may be damaged too much to be use in any cloning. Therefore alternatives have to look for.
Is it possible to get any DNA from dinosaur fossils? What if we could get soft tissues other than bones in those fossils? Another daydream of a mad scientist you may say; but not only that soft tissues had been found, some claim that they have successfully identified some DNA patterns in those tissues. Though there are scientists who turn down such claims, it is quite certain that, as you read along this, there are places on this very Earth where scientists may be actually looking at some DNA patterns obtained from dinosaur tissues.
It was in March 2005 that a team of scientists lead by Mary Higby Schweitzer announced that they were able in finding some soft tissue in a 68 million years old Tyrannosaurus Rex bone from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. Scientists are arguing over this claim but there are ongoing researches on obtaining DNA from these samples. There were also some reports of some young Chinese scientists obtaining DNA from a tissue sample they discovered on their own, but there are no hard and fast evidence to support this. It is also understandable that anyone who has dinosaur DNA with them, won’t rather boast on their findings, but pretty much try to clone a dinosaur in secrecy.
FINDING A SUITABLE WOMB FOR A DINOSAUR CLONE
If by some means a dinosaur DNA was separated and properly identified, the next challenge would be to find a suitable cell to add the DNA and to find a suitable womb to implant the newly formed embryo. So far all the cloning experiments were done within the same species and as there are no dinosaur existing, finding a womb would be pretty much of a challenge. The most interesting womb found so far by the scientists in answering this matter is the womb of a bird, giving credit to the fact that modern birds were evolved from the dinosaurs themselves. Even then, the scientists believe that no bird egg will ever give rise to a perfect dinosaur, simply due to the most obvious difference between the two, size.
The answer to this matter is to do it in a proceeding manner. The first dinosaurs born in this manner will be more of the birds themselves, but then more dinosaur clones can be implanted in them. The final product of these continues cloning would be to produce a perfect dinosaur that really did once exist. It would be fascinating to think of a bird’s egg carrying a Tyrannosaurus Rex or some other dinosaur, especially if that egg happens to be on your dinner table. But the reality is that such a thing is almost impossible to achieve with the technology we now have.
And there can be also some artificial wombs built, just to carry dinosaur embryos. I know it sounds more of a stupid science fiction but just think this way. Finding dinosaur DNA would be a miracle of its own and growing it to an embryo will be a challenge out of our understanding. If that can be achieved who can deny the possibility of growing it artificially. Besides there are tissues cultured in artificial environments and the real dinosaur embryos too may develop in totally artificial surroundings.
PRACTICAL PROBLEMS OF HAVING DINOSAURS BACK
There can be some practical issues of having dinosaurs and seems like more and more people are forced on them than the actual challengers of bringing them back to life. The first and foremost of the issues is that we and dinosaurs never truly existed together, that we belong to two separate times; as if we really lived on two different planets. It’ll be no less amusing than meeting aliens from another planet, since the Earth was far more different by the times the dinosaurs lived here. They had different environments and atmospheres to us and all this has to be recreated in order to house them. But compared to the rest of the problems, these are just problems like, whether to paint the house blue or white after building it.
Some people even argue that the dinosaurs will require so much space, that in future world, there will be not enough space for them and us humans. Some even go into far deep imagination that something like in the movie Jurassic Park will happen globally and it will make the end of us humans. But all these claims are of no real importance since to a group of scientists who can bring back a dinosaur; these kinds of issues are of no importance at all. They’ll so easily deal with them. Besides even if there was a law prohibiting in creation of a dinosaur, who can be certain that a person with the required capability, won’t think twice of breaking such a law, even it means death sentence.
So the answer is right in front of our eyes. Can scientists clone dinosaurs? I think it’s just a matter of time. People are so skeptical and so backwards in thinking of such a possibility but at the same time there are many who believe in the fact that a dinosaur may one day walk on the face of the Earth again. Sure did that Neal Armstrong’s father never thought his son to walk on the moon when young Armstrong was born or did Barak Obama’s father dream of seeing his son swearing to become the president of States. This is such a strange and unpredictable world we live in. Science is fast growing than the speed of light itself and you may never know, whether your child may in his or her adult days, wake up around 4 am just to listen to a warning call saying, “All residents are to remain alert as a dinosaur is on the loose since the last night. It will be captured soon and the residents are to remain calm within their homes until it is said to be clear”, just to turn the warning call off, turn to the other side and fall to sleep again, as if it was just another incident in their busy days.
