Could there be dinosaurs in the future?

But back to the question Could there be dinosaurs in the future?, I must say that there are high chances of this happening and believe me I’m telling you on scientific grounds and not fictitious at all. In this article I will show you because it is very likely that dinosaurs exist.

Dinosaurs already exist

Well, I must start by saying that a dinosaur as we know it has not exactly been created, but these advances that I will comment on later are undoubtedly a great step for humanity to understand dinosaurs and how they evolved.

And I say evolved because despite what many believe dinosaurs did not become extinct, dinosaurs simply evolved into birds. And all this I tell you with scientific bases.

Did dinosaurs evolve into birds?

If it sounds crazy, we could all bet that dinosaurs, based on their most common characteristics, are related to reptiles. But the reality is that these evolved into birds. However, I will not stop to explain this in detail since it is not the objective of this article.

But all of the above helps me to better contextualize and explain scientific advances and how it is possible that we will have dinosaurs in the future.

It is important that you understand that dinosaurs evolved into birds. And I say this at the risk of opening a debate in this very article.

Speaking more scientifically, many researchers have managed to observe and demonstrate that birds are at a certain embryonic stage.

They develop many dinosaur-like features; among which we have teeth and hands with three fingers.

Based on the above, what many scientists are doing is pausing embryonic development up to that point and trying to get out that dinosaur that birds carry inside, of course I say this in an unscientific way, but in the end it is what is wanted.

Why is DNA not extracted from fossils? Or why not extract DNA from a mosquito wrapped in amber?

Well before continuing and continuing with the line of key concepts to understand the future of dinosaurs We must also clarify these questions. Especially the last one that is strongly linked to the fictional film Jurassic Park or the latest Jurassic World.

Starting from the first question, a couple of years ago some researchers were able to isolate soft tissue from fossil remains, but said soft tissues, when analyzed in detail, did not have DNA. Surely a big disappointment.

But why was it not possible?, The researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (UPF-CSIC) Carles Lalueza-Fox consecrated as one of the great experts in prehistoric DNA. he explains to us:

“It is not possible for the genetic material to survive beyond a million years, even if unbeatable conditions are given. Furthermore, the DNA breaks down into shorter and shorter fragments, and when they have less than about 30 nucleotides long, it is not possible to identify them bioinformatically.

So even if short chains were recovered, we wouldn’t be able to tell if they were from a bacterium, a human, or something else.”

On the other hand, this also explains the second question, since the problem is that it is impossible to extract dinosaur DNA from a fossilized mosquito since when extracting blood what we will obtain is mosquito DNA and not dinosaur.

Once we understand the above, we can clearly distinguish between reality and fiction. You will also know how science is currently based on the great feat of reviving the dinosaurs. Knowing all this we can talk about the central theme and answer the big question: Could there be dinosaurs in the future?

Dinosaurs in the future

Well, we already know that it is not possible to clone a dinosaur with proper prehistoric DNA. But how well we know birds are their closest and current relatives. Science has the possibility of manipulating its genome (that of birds) and extracting current dinosaur DNA to recreate dinosaurs.

It may sound crazy but by finishing this article, you will know that it is possible. As possible as there is currently a Dino Chicken or chickensaur. Yes, dear reader, scientists are already working…

Dinochicken or chickenosaurus

Now we can talk about genetic manipulation of birds to get dinosaurs. And a couple of years ago it was something totally unthinkable. In fact when Jack Horner, one of the most renowned paleontologists in the world. I raise this idea. Some doubted it.

Jack Hormer, in 2011 he told the world that in 5 years the dinosaurs would exist again, today in 2017. We can know that he was not lying to us. Let’s see a little what he said in his time:

«Of course it will not be like in Jurassic Park… We will start from a chicken embryo and, through genetic engineering, we will make him go back in time until he brings out the dinosaur inside him. It will not be, at first, a complete dinosaur, but it will have many of its characteristics.

The result will be a whole new animal, a “chickensaur” (or “dinochick,” as you prefer), with many of the physical characteristics of dinosaurs. It is about managing to “reverse” evolution and resuscitate in the chicken a large number of features typical of dinosaurs, from size to teeth or claws.”

Source: In five years, we will have a living dinosaur

This was said in 2011 and spread quickly, however it was not given the importance what should be given. Now Jack Hormer himself explains that he is not going to try to totally resurrect a tyrannosaurus rex or a velociraptor.

Rather it was a new animal with many characteristics of a dinosaur. What they are doing is detecting each of the genes responsible for a certain dinosaur feature present in the embryo of the birds, to later be able to replicate it.

Once a good group of genes responsible for these characteristics have been detected, they will be able to recreate an animal with many characteristics of dinosaurs. All this in order to understand the evolution and many other aspects of these animals.

Chickens with dinosaur legs

In 2016, Chilean scientists were able to genetically alter chicken embryos, so that these They will develop chicken legs like those of dinosaurs.. Without a doubt, a great advance and that is not very far from what Hormer proposed in 2011.

The director of this investigation was the already renowned researcher Joâo Botelho who together with his team managed to take another step in the recreation of dinosaurs.

This research group was able to detect that current birds have a shorter and different fibula than the dinosaurs that had it longer and reached the ankles. This was understood as a purely evolutionary change.

This change was mediated by a gene called Indian Hedgehog (IHH). Once the above was discovered, the researchers were able to inhibit this gene, thus achieving that the chickens were born with the same legs as those of the dinosaurs.

basically what this research group did was turn back the evolutionary process, thus giving rise to one of the first dinopollos. However, this was not the only known experiment on this type. Then I talk about another carried out.

The chicken with a velociraptor snout

This discovery or scientific breakthrough was made by a group of researchers from Harvard University and Yale. They managed to identify how the dinosaurs’ snout evolved to the bird’s beak, at the genetic level.

This allowed them as in the first research to turn evolution around and develop a group of chickens with snouts dinosaur.

This is what the biologist tells us and paleontologist Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar of Yale; “Our goal was to understand the molecular basis of a major evolutionary transition, not to create a ‘dino-chicken.’

Although to tell the truth your statement is somewhat conservativeit should not be underestimated that this is an important step, in addition to the fact that said snouts and palates were very similar to those of the extinct Velociraptor and Archeopteryx.

The chickenosaurus today

With the above, you may have been impressed, since it is the most real and tactile thing that we have envelopes the dinosaurs. We know that it is not quite a dinosaur, but we know that science is advancing and that this is just the beginning.

Currently, research is still being carried out Horner himself says he is close to creating the new bird. He has figured out how to create the hands, and is currently working on the glue. Horner said:

“Learning how to turn genes on and how to turn genes off has huge impacts in the medical field. It’s a fun way to do science and gets kids interested in genetics. «

In addition to working on creating a new bird dinosaur, Horner is also working on a project with Microsoft to make holographic dinosaurs.

To all this it is not bad to affirm that within 50 years at the most we will already have dinosaurs on our planet. Considering the great advances of recent times. And everything will be based on making an involution of the current birds.

But this revolutionary method is not limited to dinosaurs, there are also great scientific advances that seek to revive prehistoric mammals such as Mammuthus Primigenius, Smilodon Fatalis, Macrauchenia Patachonica, Arctodus Simus, Thylacinus Cynocephalus, Glyptodon Clavipes…among others.

Eevive a mammoth in 10 years

Before talking in more detail about this great feat, it should be known that there are two lines of investigation that seek such a feat and all part of some DNA remains found in 2013.

This find was made in 2013, such a discovery was made in an expedition, carried out by the Russian Geographical Society and specialists from the North-Eastern Federal University.

This group was able to find a frozen mammoth It is estimated that he lived about 10 thousand years ago. Semyon Grigoriev one of the researchers states:

When we broke the ice under her abdomen, very dark blood flowed. This is the most amazing case I have ever seen in my life. In addition, the muscle tissues were red, the color of fresh meat.

Based on this finding, various investigative groups took on the task of crack the genetic code of this mammoth. All in order to understand his biology and above all with the dream of being able to revive him.

But how do they plan to do it?, One of the investigative lines plans to give life to the mammoth through a process very similar to the one carried out when cloning the famous doly sheep. This process is called cell nuclear transfer.

And it basically consists of fertilize an oocyte with an unspecialized cell of the animal to be cloned. subsequently this oocyte is inoculated into the uterus of an animal of the same or close species. To carry out a process of normal embryonic development.

The previous explanation is made in a general way and it can be a little more detailed.I have explained it in this way seeking to frame the process that is to be carried out with the mammoth and not delve much into that subject.

This process already was successful thanks to the researcher Alberto Fernández-Arias, who managed to revive the bucardo (species of goat) that had become extinct. Fernández carried out exactly the same process, incubating the cells in goats of other species.

In this way he managed to revive the bucardo. Although he only managed to live a couple of seconds It was a great milestone in history and also made it clear that this process is possible. And he opened the door for it to be done with other species.

Not being more It is already more than clear what you want to do with the mammoth, from which there is already intact living tissue from which DNA can be extracted, the idea is to fertilize a close species of elephant with these specialized cells and a mammoth is born. Currently these investigations are being carried out and we await results.

On the other hand we have the line of investigation that differs a little from the previous one, in this case scientists from Harvard University. They have tried numerous investigations inserting mammoth DNA sequences into the genome of an elephant.

To do this, the researchers isolated the genes responsible for the peculiar characteristics of mammoths. These same genes were then inserted into the genome of their close relative under the CRISPR technique.

which allows genes to be removed of the current elephant to introduce those of the mammoth in question. This research is still under development and the researchers have not released their results to the world. But whatever the method, let’s hope it works and we can see these woolly ones live and direct.

It seems that we have finished this article, full of innovation and future. I think that these investigations in a couple of years will give something to talk about and surely you will remember this article. Before finishing I would like to know your opinion on the subject, I invite you to leave a comment and not being more… I say goodbye… until next time.