The movie "Jurassic Park" made many people fear the behemoth of dinosaurs, but it is also unavoidable to be curious whether the real dinosaurs look like this? This also aroused many people's desire to "resurrect dinosaurs", and some even wanted to take an intimate photo with these "prehistoric creatures".
So, can dinosaurs be resurrected? If possible, can other "extinct species" such as saber-toothed tigers and mammoths in the movie come back to this world?
speculation about dinosaurs
Whether the dinosaur can be resurrected has always been a hot topic. In November 2021, a news broke out that a dinosaur that had long been extinct more than 60 million years ago was hatched in a laboratory in China. It also named it "Brother Kang" and attached a video. In the video, a man holding a creature that looks like a dinosaur in front of the camera and showed it to netizens, introducing the situation of "Brother Kang". Soon, the video became a hot search on Weibo, attracting the attention of countless netizens.
As the incident fermented, Tencent officials immediately came out to refute the rumors, indicating that as of now, there are no laboratories in the international community that can hatch real dinosaurs, so the source of the news is not reliable. Although this incident has been proven to be "fake news", the topic of "whether the dinosaurs can be resurrected" has been pushed back to a climax.
Netizens are roughly divided into two factions, and some people think that extinct species such as dinosaurs can be resurrected. Now cloning technology has developed relatively maturely, so as long as the DNA of these "extinct species" is extracted, they can be re-cultivated, just like the movie "Jurassic Park" that extracts DNA from amber from the blood sucked by mosquitoes to obtain information.
But another group of people think that "resurrection and extinct species" sounds unrealistic. Not to mention whether the DNA of these "prehistoric creatures" can be found, even if all the conditions are met, the national law will not allow it. If these "extinct species" are really brought to our world, is it really a good thing for us humans? Can extinct species such as
be resurrected?
As the topic becomes more popular, scientists who specialize in the field of "extinct species" have also joined the discussion one after another. They pointed out that there are theoretically three ways to resurrect extinct species such as dinosaurs.
is the first "reverse breeding" technology. is to concentrate the traits of some "extinct species" on one individual through selective breeding among offspring, thereby realizing the reproduction of the traits of extinct species. But this technology can only achieve similarity and is not truly resurrected by the "extinct species".
followed by a relatively mature cloning technology. As long as there are somatic cells of the preserved "extinct species", they can create a copy that is exactly the same as the "extinct species" gene. This technology is also the most likely way to resurrect "extinct species".
Finally, gene editing technology. reorders the genomes of existing close species, so that the reordered genomes are arranged similarly to the genomes of "extinct species", thereby creating similar species. The disadvantage is that they only have species similarity, not the recovery of "extinct species".
Although the above three technologies have been widely used in many fields, Unfortunately, scientists still use examples to tell us that resurrecting "extinct species" is not realistic according to the current technical level.
The three major problems that cannot revive "extinct species"
Let's talk about cloning technology first. The first problem we encounter is where do we need to obtain the DNA of "extinct species"? According to relevant scientific research records, extinct species such as dinosaurs survived 65 million years ago, and DNA can only be stored for a few million years at most. DNA will be destroyed after this age.. According to current human technology, we can only detect DNA fragments of organisms 1 million years ago, so it is basically impossible for netizens to use mosquito blood in amber to extract DNA information from "extinct species".
And even if we can obtain a complete set of DNA from "extinct species", cloning technology may not necessarily keep up. Because cloning a species is not just about DNA, everything goes well, also requires protein expression, base pair interaction, and an environment suitable for embryonic development, etc. The lack of any link in will directly lead to the failure of the experiment or the cultivation of "strange-shaped" organisms, so scientists often have to go through hundreds of experiments to clone an animal they want to breed. The world's first cloned sheep, Dolly, came to this world after "several obstacles", so we can imagine how difficult it is to clone "extinct species".
When it comes to "reverse breeding" technology, the most typical example is the 16th century "original cattle breeding". In Europe, raw cattle are considered to be the ancestor of domesticated cattle, so as early as 1920, a man named Heck used reverse breeding technology to try to "replicate" the raw cattle, and after repeated trials, he finally successfully bred a creature similar to the raw cattle - Heck Cattle.
However, the result is different from what Heck thought. Although the Heck cow is aggressive as the original cow, its appearance characteristics and body shape are "far from the original cow." However, he felt that this was not the result of the successful resurrection of the original cow, so the project was also stranded. This also shows that the "reverse breeding" technology can only replicate the traits of certain organisms, but it cannot replicate the same organisms. The same is true for gene editing technology. The "Resurrection Mammoth" project and the "Resurrection Traveler" project carried out by the Harvard University research team also use gene editing technology to generate somatic cells that are genetically very similar to "extinct species", thereby creating chimera that is very similar to "extinct species". However, both technologies can only be said to resurrect similar traits or functions, and genetically, they cannot be considered the true resurrection of "extinct species".
So, for now, it is almost impossible to come to this world with extinct species such as dinosaurs. Perhaps in a few decades or even hundreds of years, when science and technology reach a certain height, we can witness these huge "prehistoric creatures" with our own eyes. But at the same time, the resurrection of "extinct species" will also bring us some unknown challenges.
Challenges facing resurrection of "extinct species"
Assuming that our technical level is mature, we can successfully resurrect these "extinct species", but they will soon face the problem of "how to survive" when they come to this world. According to relevant research, during the Jurassic period, the oxygen content in the air was about 1.5 times that of today, and the carbon dioxide content was 6-7 times that of today. This means that extinct species such as dinosaurs need to survive in an environment with high oxygen and carbon dioxide content. So, even if they are resurrected now, these "extinct species" will die early because they cannot adapt to such a low-oxygen and low-carbon dioxide environment.
In addition to this, their food source is also a huge problem. Large creatures like dinosaurs, mammoths and saber-toothed tigers may have to be counted as tons of food intake a day. If these "extinct species" reproduce on a large scale, they will face a food shortage problem and will eventually die.
In addition, if the breeding species is a carnivorous organism, it will also pose a certain threat to the safety of our human life.Therefore, we will face a huge challenge. Should humans resurrect "extinct species"? What is the significance of resurrection of them to humans?
The significance of resurrection
Scientists point out that bringing back a "prehistoric creature" will face many ethical problems. After all, this is a violation of the laws of nature. If they are brought back to this world rashly, the ecological balance will be broken. The food chain may have to be readjusted at that time, and all this is still unknown. We have no way to control their future direction at all, so we must all take it with caution when facing the problem of resurrection of "extinct species".
However, it may still be feasible to resurrect some newly extinct creatures. After all, the extinction of one organism may lead to excessive reproduction of another organism, thereby breaking the ecological balance. Therefore, it is still very meaningful for humans and the ecological environment if these suddenly disappear species can be resurrected in a short period of time.
Finally, Regarding the question of whether "extinct species" can be resurrected, I want to say that there are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people, but according to the current technical level, it is definitely unrealistic. even if it can be realized one day in the future, we should be cautious. After all, resurrection of a species is not a small matter. It affects the entire biosphere, and even the whole world!
Reference:
Dinosaurs were born and resurrected in the research laboratory of scientists? The news on the Internet is untrue. Fujian refutes rumors. Lin Jinxing
Jurassic World: How difficult is it to resurrect the dinosaurs? CNKI Congyu 2018.05
Research and application of gene editing technology: an ethics perspective. CNKI Qiu Renzong
Author: Chifanla Xiaozheng Proofreader: Li Zi
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