Jurassic Park/DNA Essay, Research Paper

A Brief Summary of the Plot. A billionaire, John Hammond has created a technique to clone dinosaurs. From the left behind DNA that his crack team of scientists and experts extract he is able to grow the dinosaurs in labs and lock them up on an island behind electrified fences. He has created a sort of theme park on the island, which is located his creations. He asks a group of scientists from several different fields to come and view the park, but something terribly goes wrong when a worker on the island turns traitor and shuts down the power

In The Novel Jurassic Park, DNA is the starting point of everything. DNA is the (Desoxyribose Nucleic Acid = The Building blocks of Life) They start with amber, actually focalized tree sap. Ancient mosquitoes which have been preserved or focalized are used in the creation of dinosaurs. The basic goal is to extract the blood of a mosquito that has fed on a dinosaur, before it had been secured into the amber doom. But does amber exist which might contain ancient Dinosaur DNA.

DNA research has many practical uses such as, tracking ancient life forms, curing illness, predicting diseases in unborn children. But some people wish to exploit this new technology, like for instance, Frank Ogden, filed an application to have his own DNA trademarked in an effort to protect himself and his identity. Ogden said he doesn’t want any researchers profiting from his DNA. He said he sought a trademark because it was more likely to be granted than if he had applied for a patent. Ogden, 79, said scientists in countries like Iceland are using research information from thousands of people for their own gain without compensating their subjects. “I felt that if they sweep Canada or B.C., there goes my DNA. But if I trademarked it, it’s my property.” He said his application is important because it paves the way for others to do the same, particularly if they have a talent that may interest researchers wishing to study their DNA, the building blocks of life.

A study published on Canoe.com reviled that researchers say they have extracted DNA from ancient manure deposits left in dry caves and preserved by nature for more than 20,000 years left by a now-extinct giant ground sloth. The genes cannot be used to recreate extinct creatures like they have done in Jurassic Park, but scientists say the genes may answer basic questions about how animals lived, fed and disappeared. “This is not ‘Jurassic Park,”‘ said Hendrik N. Poinar, a University of Munich researcher. “It’s more like ‘Poop Park.”‘ With the new technique, he said, researchers will be able to identify the animals through their genetic structure. Cells from the animals’ gut are sloughed off into the feces and these cells contain the DNA.

Will we clone a dinosaur?

When you ask the question you begin to see a glimpse of an affirmative answer. Start with three articles. First, dinosaurs did not die out; indeed there are roughly twice as many species of their descendants still here on Earth as there are mammals, but we call them birds. Second, DNA is turning out to be a great deal more “conserved” than anybody ever imagined. So-called Hox genes, which lay down the body plan in an embryo, are so similar in people and fruit flies that they can be used interchangeably, yet the last common ancestor of people and fruit flies lived about 600 million years ago.

Third, and most exciting, geneticists are finding many “pseudogenes” in human and animal DNA–copies of old, discarded genes. There may be a lot of interesting but yet obsolete instructions hidden in our genes.

Implication is clear: the dinosaur genes are still out there. bring together a few complete bird genomes–complete DNA texts from the cells of different birds–and start mapping the shared features. The result is a sort of prototype genome for a basic bird.

Knocking out the genes for feathers and putting back in the genes for scaly skin; tweaking the genes for the skull so that teeth appear instead of a beak; shrinking the wings, keel and wishbone increasing size and sturdiness of the body; and so on. Soon they have the recipe for a monster that looks a little like a cross between a dodo and a tiger.

There will be troubles somebody might have forgotten to cut out the songbird’s voice genes, rusty old pseudogenes left over from the great sauropods may still be intact, hidden somewhere in the genes of a hummingbird.