Mini T-Rex: It's Like a chihuahua, only awesome!

[Mizango]

So, as a complete layman, I'd like to know. What does the process of trying to retro-engineer a species back to its previous evolutionary form entail?

First off you have to keep in mind that even thought they are gone their ancestral DNA is still present and alive today. Even after you and I die, our genes continues to be passed via out children, grandchildren, great grandchildren etc. The same goes for Dino and their DNA. I mean take whales for instance, there are instances where baby whales are born with deformities where their fins don't for correctly and are born with a "foot" like appendage.

This goes back to their ancestry when Whales where land locked creatures. We know this today because if you look at the anatomy of a Whale you notice that they still have the structure of having 5 fingers and 5 toes in each of their fins. They also still have a mammalian hip and pelvis, which serves no purpose to them in their new habitat. Chickens are the same way, next time you eat a chicken wing wonder to yourself why it has an ulna and a radius bone. Also, tear away the skin from the tip of the wing we so often throw away and you will see the 3 fingers staring back at you.

Chicken and other birds still have the genes in them, they just happen to be turned off or dormant. Most of the times they only begin to turn on when an adaptation is needed. Think of it like money in the bank you're saving for a rainy day, if you can modify a chickens DNA and trick it to turn on the razor sharp tooth making gene and the scale making gene and so on then can in essence create a retro dinosaur.

We can look at a two day old chicken embryo under lab conditions and expect to see between four and eight vertebrae present in the developing spine but occasion we see birds developing 16 vertebrae which is effectively a reptilian tail. But as the embryo further develops, the tail became ever shorter and shorter until the chick hatches with and only has five vertebrae.

I mean the science is there and there aren't any barriers stopping us, other than the philosophical ones.


Edit: Check this out. Its the series as it was shown on the Discovery channel about a year ago.

YouTube - Dinosaur to bird evolution 1of5

[Max™]

That's another thing which is hard to explain about DNA.

Your hand started as a bud of growing flesh, then genes told the bud to stop growing at certain points, told other points to die back, and split the bud into five buds.

Then it told cells to start plating calcium down and form bones, ligaments, vessels, etc.

All of this came from a sequence of DNA coding, four bases, millions of possible arrangements due to ordering and such.

[Mizango]

Sorry it took so long to post, I am doing a web conference right now at the same time.

Here is another experiment:

Scientist have looked into an ancient Chinese breed of chicken called a Silkie. They have primitive plumage similar to what we believed to have grown on some dinosaurs.

Yet buy activating a once dormant gene in the Silkie, Professors Harris and Fallon were essentially trying to wake up and to trick the chicken’s leg into growing feathers on it's lower quarters rather than scales. In the end they had uncovered the genetic DNA that was in control of making birds the new dinosaur.

You can read more about the experiments here:

Theropod Raptors: The Retro-Chicken Genome | THE BIOTECH FILES

It takes me too long to type since Im listening to a shitty Debian enchilada presentation

[Mizango]

Sorry it took so long to post, I am doing a web conference right now at the same time.

Here is another experiment:

Scientist have looked into an ancient Chinese breed of chicken called a Silkie. They have primitive plumage similar to what we believed to have grown on some species of dinosaurs.

By activating a once dormant gene in the Silkie chicken, Professors Harris and Fallon were essentially trying to wake up and to trick the chicken’s leg into growing feathers on it's lower quarters rather than scales. In the end they had uncovered the genetic DNA that was in control of making birds the new dinosaur per se.

You can read more about the experiments here:

Theropod Raptors: The Retro-Chicken Genome | THE BIOTECH FILES

It takes me too long to type since Im listening to a shitty Debian enchilada presentation


Edit: Oh I almost forgot, here is a picture of a Chicken embryo with "Tooth buds" that can be turned into razor sharp teeth if the dormant gene is stimulated. They gradually disappear as the Chick develops however.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y15...ick-738695.jpg

[isladar]

That is fucking bad-ass right there.

[Zanz L. Barre The 3rd]

Holy shit, that's beautiful.

[Stilzkin]

Sort of late but...

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...liskin/gon.jpg

[Khamsin]

Since we are a natural organism, a part of the cosmos, nature, and natural evolution of life, like anything else, would us bringing back extinct forms of life, colonizing other worlds, etc. then be the logical and expected course of nature and evolution?

Would scientific models of natural evolution take into account the biological process, as well as the influence of other evolved species in altering that process? Such that the expected course of evolution for any life-capable world starting with some single celled organisms in a primordial soup would be for purely unassisted biological evolution for X billion years followed by science-knows-what for the next X billion years as lifeforms start playing with each other's DNA and visiting other worlds.

Some might describe it as unnatural, but if were simply a part of nature like anything else, anything we do is natural, too.

So a complete theory of evolution should include the expectation that genes will be played with by other animals in the natural course of evolution, and will no longer purely be based on natural selection or adaptation. Especially since we don't need to evolve to adapt anymore.

[Kerberoz]

Of course. "Natural" is a completely arbitrary and ultimately bullshit term. Everything is natural.

[Mizango]

Delicious redrum.

[Khamsin]

Of course. "Natural" is a completely arbitrary and ultimately bullshit term. Everything is natural.

Therefore, a predictive and complete model of evolution should contain the natural expectation of our actions. So what would it say about what's next? How are our actions predicted by evolution? What species will we create or revive, and which will we kill? And why?

[Max™]

Our evolution from the rest of this century on out will be at our own hands largely.

There will be new kinds of selection pressures when/if we make it to being a space based society, and natural genetic drift over time (unless we become Druzites, god help us all) will produce interesting effects.

I'm not sure if an ancestor of mine from 500 megayears downstream will be as recognizably human as my ancestors from 500 megayears ago.

[Woozie]

Edit: Oh I almost forgot, here is a picture of a Chicken embryo with "Tooth buds" that can be turned into razor sharp teeth if the dormant gene is stimulated. They gradually disappear as the Chick develops however.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y15...ick-738695.jpg

More proof that scientist don't watch enough horror films.

[Xiona]

sooo jesus could have ridden a t-rex instead of a raptor, fascinating.

[Mizango]

sooo jesus could have ridden a t-rex instead of a raptor, fascinating.

Hey, a playa gone play.

[AoE]

Fuck the evolution shit. How long til we're able to splice up a Manbearpig?

For referential purposes...

Spoiler: show

http://thingsaboutportlandthatsuck.f...anbearpig1.jpg

(I know there's a lot of ethical stuff involved and it'd more than likely never happen but humor me anyway.)

[sephir]

Everyday I'm realizing that scientists don't really know that much at all about the dinosaurs.

I remember reading an article not too long ago about scientists questioning whether or not the meteor/comet actually killed the dinosaurs. The rational was that in examining the soil layers the location where a comet was believed to have hit was 600,000 years before the dinosaurs went extinct.

As far as recreating the dinosaurs. Go for it I want a pet T-rex.

[arus2001]

Probably slow, but...

If you think about the implications of that, it literally makes things heavier in the path of the beam... if you make the core of a star heavier... what happens?

...calling Kirstie Alley to find out.

[Mizango]

Everyday I'm realizing that scientists don't really know that much at all about the dinosaurs.

I remember reading an article not too long ago about scientists questioning whether or not the meteor/comet actually killed the dinosaurs. The rational was that in examining the soil layers the location where a comet was believed to have hit was 600,000 years before the dinosaurs went extinct.

That's the beauty of science, its a self correcting entity. As opposed to questioning religion in any form and being labeled immediately as a self loathing atheist.

You see it as "we don't know shit" but that is quite the contrary. When work is scrutinized so meticulously it weeds out the weaker theories and beliefs and replaces then with facts. FACTS and PROOF.

[isladar]

Therefore, a predictive and complete model of evolution should contain the natural expectation of our actions. So what would it say about what's next? How are our actions predicted by evolution? What species will we create or revive, and which will we kill? And why?

Evolution can't be predictive in that manner (if I'm interpreting exactly how you mean) because we'll never have the capacity to anticipate every adaptive problem that initiates an evolutionary shift to begin with. There really is no way to predict a random genetic mutation that somehow makes it through to reproductive stage that also just happens to answer an adaptive issue faced by an organism.

Our actions aren't predicted by evolution, but we can attempt to basically reverse-engineer our palette of adaptations to find out what problems are answered by what we come 'out of the box' with.

Most of us were born with an adaptation that recognizes intent in motion (i.e., holy shit that's a predator), but that adaptation isn't going to dictate that I don't run out into traffic as a kid.