4 ms·

Possible? Yes. Practical? Not for 2-3 decades when DNA synthesis capacity gets good enough to synthesize full animal genomes. In terms of raw synthesis power, w

by koeng 7y ago

Possible? Yes. Practical? Not for 2-3 decades when DNA synthesis capacity gets good enough to synthesize full animal genomes. In terms of raw synthesis power, we do have the ability to synthesize billions of base pairs, but you're going to need other infrastructure around it. Also, immune problems I don't think would be a huge issue, the adaptive immune system has been around for a while.

joyj2nd 7y ago
" we do have the ability to synthesize billions of base pairs" This is a valid point. We don't have the technology yet. There was once an SBIR opening for long DNA synthesis but I did not keep track of it. But, given we have the technology it still would not be enough. To slowly make an elephant a mammoth. Yes. Maybe. But making a Tyrannosaurus Rex from scratch is tricky, you also need cells, mitochondria, DNA methylation etc.
kuprel 7y ago
If we could synthesize the dinosaur DNA, would a chicken be able to hatch a dinosaur egg if we injected it in the right place?
- a_t48 7y ago
  I'd go for something larger like an emu, personally. :)
  - kijin 7y ago
    The Australian army has had enough difficulty dealing with emus already. Dinosaurs would absolutely wipe them out. On a more serious note, are egg sizes proportional to the size of the animal, or does the curve flatten after a certain size? I can't imagine an adult T-Rex dropping eggs that are 90cm across, for example, without either breaking them or making the shell impractically thick.
    - nerfhammer 7y ago
      there is a maximum viable egg size, which is about as big as an ostrich egg, due to the square-cube law. Eggs need to be semi-breathable, but as volume increases cubically, surface area increases only quadratically, but surface area is needed for breathability. So huge dinosaurs had eggs that weren't much bigger than ostrich eggs, containing relatively tiny offspring. Maybe they would have been very cute. Or not, since baby birds often aren't that cute. Since eggs had to be small, many dinosaurs utilized r-selection, like sea turtles for example, producing large numbers of eggs that only a tiny percent of which would survive to adulthood. This may also be why there were such ferociously efficient superpredator dinosaurs, because there were large numbers of relatively helpless juvenile dinosaurs scampering around to be preyed upon.
- rcpt 7y ago
  http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150512-bird-grows-face-of-dinosaur http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150512-bird-grows-face-of-d... Some are trying to do this with chickens

by koeng 7y ago

joyj2nd 7y ago

" we do have the ability to synthesize billions of base pairs" This is a valid point. We don't have the technology yet. There was once an SBIR opening for long DNA synthesis but I did not keep track of it. But, given we have the technology it still would not be enough. To slowly make an elephant a mammoth. Yes. Maybe. But making a Tyrannosaurus Rex from scratch is tricky, you also need cells, mitochondria, DNA methylation etc.

kuprel 7y ago

If we could synthesize the dinosaur DNA, would a chicken be able to hatch a dinosaur egg if we injected it in the right place?

a_t48 7y ago
I'd go for something larger like an emu, personally. :)
- kijin 7y ago
  The Australian army has had enough difficulty dealing with emus already. Dinosaurs would absolutely wipe them out. On a more serious note, are egg sizes proportional to the size of the animal, or does the curve flatten after a certain size? I can't imagine an adult T-Rex dropping eggs that are 90cm across, for example, without either breaking them or making the shell impractically thick.
  - nerfhammer 7y ago
    there is a maximum viable egg size, which is about as big as an ostrich egg, due to the square-cube law. Eggs need to be semi-breathable, but as volume increases cubically, surface area increases only quadratically, but surface area is needed for breathability. So huge dinosaurs had eggs that weren't much bigger than ostrich eggs, containing relatively tiny offspring. Maybe they would have been very cute. Or not, since baby birds often aren't that cute. Since eggs had to be small, many dinosaurs utilized r-selection, like sea turtles for example, producing large numbers of eggs that only a tiny percent of which would survive to adulthood. This may also be why there were such ferociously efficient superpredator dinosaurs, because there were large numbers of relatively helpless juvenile dinosaurs scampering around to be preyed upon.
rcpt 7y ago
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150512-bird-grows-face-of-dinosaur http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150512-bird-grows-face-of-d... Some are trying to do this with chickens