In the past few days, the news that Russian scientists have successfully resurrected 24,000-year-old ancient creatures has swept the screen, and many people regretfully ask in the comment area: Why not resurrect dinosaurs?
I believe that many people have the same question, because as early as 5 years ago, Chinese scientists have discovered the only piece of dinosaur flesh remains in the world, when this discovery caused a sensation in the entire scientific community, which is also the first time that human scientists have truly witnessed the real body of dinosaurs (more pictures will be shown later, so that everyone can also see it with their own eyes).
A Tyrannosaurus rex quietly foraging in the dark
So the question is, why with the superb genetic technology mastered by humans, the resurrection of dinosaurs has not been achieved until today? The miracle dinosaur park in the movie "Jurassic Park", do we have the ability to make it come true today?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > First, what does the "dinosaur wreckage" discovered by Chinese scientists look like? </h1>
As we all know, dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, so before 2015, all traces of dinosaurs found by humans were fossils.
Fossils are stones, and current technology cannot extract DNA from stones, so it is naturally impossible to resurrect dinosaurs.
But in June 2015, Dr. Xing Lida, a paleontologist at China University of Geosciences, found a strange piece of amber at an amber market in Kachin State, Myanmar.
The amber mining area in northern Myanmar is a major livelihood for the locals
There are 2 ants in this amber, and then there is a cluster of plant-like things, so the locals named this amber "Ant on the Tree" to be sold as a souvenir to foreign tourists in northern Myanmar.
After Dr. Xing Lida discovered this piece of amber, his professional sensitivity made him recognize at a glance that the "plant" in the amber clump actually had feathers on it...
This piece of amber was formed about 100 million years ago, and the creatures that can carry feathers are either primitive birds or dinosaurs, no matter which one of them, has great research value, and this discovery makes Xing Lida ecstatic, even if he pays for it.
Professor Xing Lida, China University of Geosciences
Xing Lida's team quickly began to study the amber, and as expected, the sealed thing in the amber was not a plant at all, but a small section of the tail of the real body of a dinosaur.
The tail is about 6 cm long and contains at least 9 tail vertebrae, with brown feathers on the back and white feathers on the ventral surface. According to the feather analysis, this tail should belong to a small hand robber, and the recovered dinosaur is only about 18 cm long, which is very cute.
This major discovery was immediately published in the international journal Contemporary Biology, which immediately caused a sensation among paleontologists around the world, and it was the first time in human history that the real remains of dinosaurs other than fossils were found.
This rare piece of "dinosaur tail amber"
In the movie "Jurassic Park", scientists finally succeeded in resurrecting dinosaurs precisely because they found a mosquito that had sucked dinosaur blood in amber. And now, a sample that is thousands of times better than dinosaur blood has actually appeared in reality — a real dinosaur tail.
With this tail cut, with the genetic technology that human beings are now highly developed, can the real dinosaurs be resurrected because of this?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="16" > Second, how can dinosaurs be resurrected? Hit the front station of the "Mammoth Resurrection Plan"</h1>
In the use of modern genetic technology to resurrect paleontology, many scientists around the world have a very strong interest.
As early as 2011, Japan proposed a "mammoth resurrection plan", the project of Japanese scientists hope to find the remaining living cells through the Siberian permafrost excavated mammoth body tissue, from which to find the remaining living cells for culture, in order to eventually resurrect the mammoth that has long been extinct.
Prehistoric land behemoth mammoth
On February 19, 2017, Xu Xun, president of BGI Gene Research Institute, chief scientist and director of the National Gene Bank, said through Science and Technology Daily that Chinese scientists have restored the full function of mammoth cells and formed embryonic cells, as long as there is a suitable surrogate, mammoth can be truly resurrected.
At that time, the Chinese research team was stuck in the "surrogacy body", mainly waiting for a breakthrough in the "artificial uterus" breeding technology, and in April this year, Israeli scientists successfully realized the cultivation of mammalian embryos in the "artificial uterus".
The success of this study means that China's "Mammoth Resurrection Plan" has completely cleared the way, and I am afraid that we will only need to wait a few more years for the ancient mammoth to reappear in China.
"Tail Amber" restored dinosaur "Eva"
The opening of the road to mammoth resurrection means that all extinct creatures that have been found by humans to find living cells can, in principle, be resurrected through the way of "recreating mammoths", and dinosaurs, of course, are no exception.
And the most critical point of this is to get the "living cells" of dinosaurs!
So is there still a living cell of the original dinosaur in the tail of the dinosaur sealed in amber?
Answer: Impossible.
Dinosaur "tail amber" looked at the big picture up close, and I circled the two mosquitoes with a red circle
This piece of "tail amber" was formed about 100 million years ago, and no cell can support it for such a long time, so even if a dinosaur tail is sealed in this piece of amber, it is impossible to have a living dinosaur cell.
So, there is no other way to get the living cells of dinosaurs?
Yes!
As long as the complete DNA in this tail is restored, with the genetic technology currently mastered by human beings, it is still possible to cultivate artificial dinosaur living cells through genetic technology!
Stills from Jurassic Park
I'll give you a brief look at how genetics were used to resurrect dinosaurs, but before we say that, we'll need to take a look at the scientific background of Spielberg's 1993 filming of Jurassic Park.
In the 1980s, a number of laboratories in Europe and the United States published research papers showing that human technology had made it possible to extract DNA from amber that was sealed in ancient organisms. In 1990, American scientists successfully extracted dna fragments of ancient bees sealed in an amber piece, and it was under the breakthrough of this major scientific discovery that the movie "Jurassic Park" came into being.
But with the advancement of human genetic science, scientists have gradually discovered that the DNA of ancient organisms extracted from amber is incomplete, and even macromolecules such as polysaccharides can only be preserved in amber for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years.
Close-up enlargement of the feathers in Tail Amber
In 2013, the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom published a paper in PLOS ONE (international biological heavyweight journal), claiming that ancient biological DNA will accelerate degradation and decay in amber, and insect DNA can only be preserved in amber for about 60 years. Of course, this conclusion needs to be further confirmed, but it is a fact that amber is not conducive to the preservation of biological DNA.
These studies show that it is impossible to extract dinosaur DNA from amber and resurrect it as in Jurassic Park, because the dinosaur remains sealed in amber are at least 65 million years old, and the dinosaur genes have long been destroyed.
Is there no way around that?
No, there is a way.
Because genetic scientists have long invented a black technology - high-throughput sequencing technology.
Although this technology is not very perfect at present, its functions are extremely powerful. Since the relevant theory is too professional, I will make it as straightforward as possible here, in short, it can restore the complete DNA sequence of an organism through powerful calculations and comparisons based on certain PIECEs of DNA in the organism.
In the 13 years from 1990 to 2003, geneticists around the world joined forces to complete a great task, the Human Genome Project. Genetic scientists around the world have worked together to successfully map the genes of human beings.
At the time, the plan, which was comparable to "operation moon landing", cost nearly $3 billion, but if there was a "high-throughput sequencing technology" invented later, I am afraid that only one-tenth of the $3 billion would be enough to complete the plan.
University of Connecticut "high-throughput sequencing" machine
Now that humans have mastered the technology to restore entire gene sequences through only "DNA fragments", the resurrection of dinosaurs is no longer technically a fantasy!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="39" > third, dinosaur resurrection plan</h1>
The plan can be roughly divided into 3 steps:
The first step is to obtain dinosaur genetic information in amber and restore it to a "complete genetic sequence."
We don't know how many dinosaur genes remain in "tail amber", in fact, it doesn't matter if there is nothing left, because the tail in amber can provide the basic genetic information of this dinosaur, such as appearance, body structure, physiological characteristics and so on.
With this information, it can be genetically edited to obtain certain gene fragments, and eventually its "complete gene sequence" can be obtained through "high-throughput sequencing technology."
With a "complete gene sequence", the second step can be implemented – the artificial creation of "living cells".
This technology is currently the top secret of major biological companies and research institutions, each has its own tricks, the basic principle is to find a suitable embryonic cell, and then the obtained "complete gene sequence" is inserted into it, so as to get a "living cell" that can really grow.
With the "living cell", the third step is the latest "artificial womb", this "living cell" will be placed in the "artificial womb" carefully cultivated, and eventually grow into a dinosaur.
Gene editing
Now that the first dinosaur resurrection is completed, with this living dinosaur sample, everything is easy to do, scientists can continue to modify or edit its genes, and finally edit thousands of dinosaur species from a dinosaur species, the terrestrial overlord Tyrannosaurus rex, the sea overlord Canglong, the huge and gentle Thunder Dragon may be reproduced one by one, so as to achieve the real "Jurassic Park".
If "Jurassic Park" is really copied by humans, the various collateral benefits it produces are probably unprecedented, it can not only show the most cutting-edge scientific and technological level of a country in the world, but also bring immeasurable economic benefits, and the city where "Jurassic Park" is located will undoubtedly become a spiritual holy place for young people and children around the world.
It's just that when you go to the "Holy Land" to play, you must pay attention to safety, and you must run fast when you encounter dinosaurs chasing
But this "dinosaur resurrection plan" is also quite difficult, money and technology are indispensable, but in my opinion, in the final analysis, it is still a problem of funds, with money, what kind of talent and technology can not be found?
Some time ago Musk said that he would resurrect dinosaurs within 15 years, which is probably not his casual nonsense, in fact, with the existing genetic technology of human beings, it is indeed barely possible to do this, but it is necessary to invest a lot of resources in the early stage of research, but once successful, the social and economic benefits brought are also extremely amazing.
In today's world, the only one who can have enough strength to complete the great achievement of the resurrection of dinosaurs is China and the United States, but the United States has Musk, and where is our China's "Musk"?
The resurrected ancient undersea overlord, the Dragon of Cang
"Dinosaur resurrection technology" is likely to become an indispensable important commanding height in the future scientific and technological competition, it essentially represents the most advanced productivity of a country in biotechnology, and biotechnology itself is also one of the most important directions for the development of human science and technology, so the matter of "resurrecting dinosaurs" really cannot make the United States focus on the front.
I hope that China's technology giants will no longer stare at the three melons and two dates on the people's plates, we really need China's business home, and there is also our own "Musk"!
Text/Dream awakening Jinguancheng