• Question: Could you bring dinosaurs back to life if you tried realy hard

    Asked by Daniyel and alex to Thomas on 20 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Thomas Clements

      Thomas Clements answered on 20 Mar 2015:

      Oh man, I would love to.

      In order to clone a dinosaur, you would need to know its genetic code and therefore, find preserved DNA, which is where you find this information in cells. Sadly, we know from experiments that DNA decays super quickly and just can’t be preserved. In the film Jurassic Park, scientist extract DNA from mosquitoes in amber (fossil tree sap) – and this has been attempted. Modern techniques cannot locate dino DNA and it is likely that it isn’t even there.

      Other than dinos, there are other examples of extinct things where we might be able to clone them. A good example is the woolly mammoth, where many carcasses have been found frozen for thousands of years in the permafrost in Siberia. We aren’t sure yet, but there may be DNA preserved in the blood and organs and theoretically it might be possible to clone one.

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