We¡¯ve recovered the bones of dinosaurs from millions of years ago, thanks to how they¡¯ve been preserved in rock, dirt, and swamps. The one thing that doesn¡¯t survive that passage of time, however, is their DNA. In what seems to be a path-breaking find, scientists believe they now know what it looked like.
Researchers at the University of Kent have been studying the DNA of modern turtles and birds, the more evolved descendants of the lizard overlords of the Earth. They think they may have figured out a way to backtrack through history - 255 million years of it, in fact - to piece together what a dinosaur¡¯s DNA would have looked like.
Dinosaurs were widely varied. Some had incredibly long necks, others had back ridges and spiked tails, and still more were large enough to crush smaller creatures in their jaws. You don¡¯t see that among birds very often, so you¡¯d think their DNA has drastically changed over the millennia. Apparently, you'd be wrong to deduce that.
The research team, in fact, believes that dinosaur DNA has changed very little through time, and that current day birds actually have DNA structures similar to their ancient relatives. In addition, despite the dinosaurs having effectively died out, they believe their DNA had ¡°a blueprint for evolutionary success¡±. What the means is dinosaur DNA was capable of variation, making it easier for the species to survive natural selection thanks to different evolution paths. That¡¯s why birds now are so common, as well as come in so many different shapes and forms.
BBC asked the obvious question resulting from this discovery and no, we can¡¯t use that supposed DNA to create a dinosaur just yet. ¡°We are not going to have Jurassic Park anytime soon,¡± said Professor Darren Griffin, who participated in the study. After all, even if birds are distantly related to dinosaurs, you can't just put the synthetic DNA of one into an egg and hope you get a T-Rex for your efforts.
There goes the plot device of at least one movie franchise.