MOVIE NEWS – According to Chinese scientists, it is possible to extract usable DNA from the fossilised remains of ancient reptiles.

 

 

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Ian Malcolm put his concerns into words in Jurassic Park when he described the problems that can arise in a theme park where tourists are trapped with dozens of erratically behaving dinosaurs.

It seems that his words have not reached a team of scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who have published a study claiming to have found fully intact dinosaur DNA in a 125 million-year-old fossil. Hold on!

The study, published in the journal Nature, claims that the DNA was found on cartilage from a Caudipteryx fossil. This dinosaur lived in the Cretaceous period and was about the size of a peacock. The results show that the cartilage was taken from the femur and treated with a chemical solution designed to illuminate the different cell structures of the subject. The results revealed several features that suggest the presence of intact DNA strands.

While some people immediately think of a Jurassic Park movie – after all, who wouldn’t want to be chased by a Tyrannosaurus rex? Chemistry World cites many counter-arguments that the technique used in the tests is inconclusive and too imprecise to make ground-breaking announcements about the results.

However, Alida Bailleul, corresponding author of the study, said in a press release, “We are obviously interested in fossilised cell nuclei, because this is where most of the DNA should be if DNA was preserved.”

“So, we have good preliminary data, very exciting data, but we are just starting to understand cellular biochemistry in very old fossils. At this point, we need to work more. “

It’s worth noting that the discovery of partial dinosaur DNA is not new. Organic material has been found in 75 million-year-old fossils before, at Imperial College London and the Chinese Academy of Sciences by the current study’s authors. Even Bailleul acknowledged that the present discovery is a starting point for their research, whether the DNA is partial or complete. Still, it is doubtful that they will ever use it to clone dinosaurs in the way John Hammond’s team did in Jurassic Park – and from what we know so far about Jurassic World: World Domination, it is probably for the best.

In the final film of the Jurassic World trilogy, dinosaurs are again free to roam the world, seemingly with the same rights as every other living creature on Earth, but not willing to stop and think before they bite someone who moves. Although the distributor showed the opening scene of the film in IMAX theatres earlier this year, we’re still waiting for the full trailer, in which fans hope to see original cast members Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum reunited in the thick of the action for the first time as they try to save the world from falling back into the Dark Ages of Earth history.

Jurassic World: World Domination hits cinemas on 10 June 2022.

Source: Nature, ThePressFree