God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs…
Now for another blog titled with a movie quote relevant to the following text. This time it’s Jurassic Park!
Dolly the sheep. The first published case of successful animal cloning. Since then many other animals have been cloned, most of them livestock, but also a dog called Snuppy. Awh 
These animals could be cloned because they have surrogate mothers to carry the embryo of the clone, but when the idea of cloning extinct species came up many scientists thought of ideas as to how this could work… after all, the embryos would have no surrogates of the same species in which to grow. However, it has been suggested that using other currently living animals of similar physiology to ones being cloned could work. And so using this basis, scientists (earlier this year) cloned cells of a Pyrenean Ibex, implanted them into another similar goat species and got a successful clone embryo growing. However it died shortly after birth, but this was still a major step forward in the field.
Now, ideas have been floating round for a while that scientists, using cloning technology, may be able to ressurrect the Wooly Mammoth from extinction! The birth of the extinct Ibex showed great potential for this. Of course a regular elephant would have to be used as a surrogate, which could cause issues especially since mammoths were considerably larger than our modern pachyderms. However it has not been ruled out as impossible, and in fact scientists have been working on frozen mammoth DNA for years to see what they can do about cloning it.
This looks sciencey...
An so, people set their sights on an even greater feat… Cloning The Dinosaurs!
Now, initially there was a major issue with this in that there was no dinosaur flesh or organic material from which to take DNA samples. However, correct me if I’m wrong, I believe that samples HAVE actually been found of (somehow) preserved dinosaur skin which could potentially contain their ancient genetic code.
But even if scientists managed to sample dino DNA, there is the major issue being that there is nothing alive today that could act as a surrogate for dinosaurs! Especially since the only successful cloning we’ve done with modern animals was with mammals. Dinosaurs hatched from eggs, so bringing up a massive problem for researchers.
Anyway… one day it MIGHT just be possible for this to happen, but i’m bored of serious science now, time for the ethical side of things. And by ethics, I mean how AWESOME it would be to have dinosaurs alive today!
I’m sure that if dinosaurs were cloned, a setup like Jurassic Park could actually work if done properly (i.e. not in secret on an island on which there are very few safe places if the dinosaurs did escape and rampage everywhere). It would be a massive leap in the field of genetics, and help us learn a lot more about life millions of years ago, from where our modern birds/reptiles came from as well as how they worked on the inside, how internal systems have evolved. Not to mention it would be totally AWESOME to be face to face with a real life dinosaur!
'I beg to differ...'
Of course there would be real ethics involved… for instance they would be cloned and bred only to be kept in captivity, because they could never be released into the wild. This seems like a cruel destiny… but take modern zoos for example, they have great conditions for the animals! I’m sure a suitable habitat for dinosaurs could be recreated. It would probably need to be on a vast plain of land, but that’s definitely do-able!
And if we could tame the dinosaurs… think of the possibilities! No seriously, think of the possibilities, I’m completely stuck for ideas now.
I’m personally skeptical about bringing back the dinosaurs, I don’t think we’ll ever have the technology to do so, but mammoths are a real possibility! And they could actually be allowed to roam free in the wild eventually, not just be kept in captivity.
Who knows, I plan on doing a bioloy degree of some description, I could always specialise in genetics and help the cause!
Until next time…
Song: ‘Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells’
Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!
Hovercars.
Hover technology in general. It sounds like a a great idea, a really typical veision of the future where everything is flying around. But also very mechanically/economically/environmentally a bad idea.
You’d think that having a hover car would be great… because it’s hovering! But when driving along, surely it’s the same as any normal car anyway, so there is seemingly little point in the technology. The main reason that hovering vehicles are unnecessary is a little thing called ‘roads’!
We have roads designed for wheeled automobiles to drive on! If the land was without roads and untraversible in a regular vehicle, then sure hovering cars aren’t too bad an idea… but the idea of using hover cars on normal roads is idiotic.
I have determined 3 main ways that hover technology could work;
1) Jets of air underneath the car propelling it upwards (not dissimilar to hovercraft technology). This idea doesn’t strike me as sensible, as there would have to be constant streams of concentrated powerful air blasting out underneath the car. This would (probably) require a complex pneumatic system, and would take up lots of energy. Not to mention the noise… It would be unbelievably loud! So this is not a workable concept with respect to hover technology.
2) Proper propulsion jets under the car. This is even less concieveable, as the amount of energy to do this would be immense, plus there would be horrendous emissions. To keep up a constant stream of this power is simply not possible. Two down, one to go…
3) Some sort of national magnet system. Roads would be fitted with electromagnets underneath them, and cars with something of the same polarity… so when they meet the road, the magnets repel and the car is lifted upwards. Now this is probably the hardest system to work out how to achieve, but would probably be the most environmentally friendly and energy efficient. However… it would almost certainly require the entitre national road system to be dug up so that massive magnets could be put underneath. So, maybe not such a great idea.
The concept of hover technology is just not plausible as a reality and should just be left to science fiction. It is complex, would use lots of energy and is, most of all, unnecessary.
If we want to look into fast, efficient and awesomely sci-fi transport, then I think that teleportation is a much better way to go. Of course… it still needs a little work, but it has the potential to be a fantastically useful transport system were it made possible! Sure, it would encourage laziness because people wouldn’t have to walk places… also it could potentially facilitate easier bank robberies, but the fact is it would be great technology advancement as well as something totally new.
I imply that hover technology is not new. Well, there is no reason that we couldn’t develop the technology right now, but it’s the matter of uselessness. With hover technology, you still have to make the same journeys on the same roads, taking the same amount of time to reach your destination… the only difference? The massive waste of energy in doing so. I think that point has been over emphasised here… but it is one of only a few pretty major issues with the idea.
That’s about all I have to say really… except of course that regardless of what I’ve said, Back To The Future (II) is still awesome!
Song: ‘Lit – Miserable’
