# De-extinct T-Rex Synthetically? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 11, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423 "2013-04-11T17:26:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/21 "2013-04-12T14:35:21Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Lesson: If Spielberg can only do 1 passable Indiana Jones Sequel (Last Crusade), there’s no reason to think he can do a passable sequel with revenant dinosaurs. I mean besides _that_. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/22 "2013-04-12T15:59:26Z")
Even if you could, it would be a curiosity only. You couldn’t release them into the wild. Basically, you could make one and put it in a zoo, but I don’t see much other use for it. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/23 "2013-04-12T17:02:22Z")
The definitive answer has already been given. Without a copy of the genome, we can’t make t-rexes. The closest we would get is something which is phenotypically similar(similar in appearance, but not genetically). Whatever behaviors we may observe in the resultant animal would not necessarily be similar to an actual t-rex. We may get an animal with a body like a t-rex but a brain like an ostrich and it keeps trying to bury its head when it feels threatened. Aside from the form factor, this would simply have been an enormous waste of time. Even if we isolate genes with linkages to aggression and predatory instincts and include those, have we created a t-rex which is more aggressive and predatory than the original? We have no way to know. For the moment though, let’s assume we don’t really care about what the animal ends up acting like, let’s just go for something that meets the form factor. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Of course, the T-Rexes we create will end up prone to hip dysplasia. This would be the biggest problem. Genes which clearly map to phenotype traits(blue eyes, brown hair, etc) are relatively easy to identify. Breed an animal with it, breed an animal without it, voila. But some of the subtler differences, like the combination of genes which predisposes an animal to hip dysplasia, are not. We would probably wind up with a dinosaur which is lactose-intolerant, asthmatic, arthritic, infertile, and schizophrenic. And really, who needs that kind of drama? Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/24 "2013-04-12T17:22:57Z")
And it’d be constantly pestering you for tree fiddy. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/25 "2013-04-12T17:40:53Z")
Furthermore, I’ll tell you what will happen if we DO succeed. Far too many people already find themselves unwilling to bother providing proper care for Shar Peis and Chihuahuas. Once seven-ton predatory monsters enter the pet market, people will trot out the same tired excuses for dumping them once the allure has worn off: “We’re expecting a baby, and we just don’t know how a Tyrannosaurus will react. What if the baby cries? We just want everyone to be _safe._” “Bobby, Rex is getting too big for our apartment. Your Mom and I are sending him to a farm in New York where he’ll have room to run and play.” “He _growled_ at me when I scolded him. I won’t tolerate that from a seven-ton carnivore.” “My landlord says I can’t have a pet.” “He eats too much. I can’t afford hadrosaurs.” And so there will be what animal welfare people call “surrenders.” And that will create a need for some sort of entity to take responsibility for these unwanted animals. In anticipation of this very problem, I hereby establish the world’s first Tyrannosaurus Rex Rescue and Adoption Agency! While I am thinking up a good name, you guys can throw me some PayPal to get started on facility acquisition. I figure we’ll need, at a minimum, Montana. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/26 "2013-04-12T17:57:53Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Nevertheless, a close simulation would be kinda cool. Right, plus I’ll bet they’re pretty tasty. Talk about feeling like you’re at the top of the food chain. Makes shark seem pretty puny by comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/27 "2013-04-12T19:50:23Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > Right, plus I’ll bet they’re pretty tasty. Talk about feeling like you’re at the top of the food chain. Makes shark seem pretty puny by comparison. Interestingly, it has been postulated by prehistoric epicureans and confirmed by contemporary conspiracy theorists that it is only the rice-grain-sized pineal gland of T-Rex that is worth harvesting, sautéing in butter and eating atop a dollop of Beluga Caviar on a Ritz Cracker. The rest of the carcass is considered unfit for human consumption and must be discarded in it’s entirety. I, for one, see no problem with that and hardily endorse farming these creatures for the benefit of mankind. ---
**Author:** ![bdgr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/28 "2013-04-12T22:18:00Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > Right, plus I’ll bet they’re pretty tasty. Talk about feeling like you’re at the top of the food chain. Makes shark seem pretty puny by comparison. I"m sure they taste like chicken. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/29 "2013-04-12T23:53:17Z")
> [@Mtgman](#): > > We would probably wind up with a dinosaur which is lactose-intolerant, asthmatic, arthritic, infertile, and schizophrenic. Geez, talk about a compound of blunder. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/30 "2013-04-13T00:57:07Z")
I think there are a lot of “forever”, never", “impossible”, “definitive” in this threads. We have no way to know what progresses could be made in the next 100 years, and making any prediction about the next 1000 years would be completely ludicrous. Just compare the state of bio-engineering in 1913 and now. There’s no way to know what kind of datas we’ll be able to extract from what in 2113. Of course, the issue is more with the question than with the answers. ---
**Author:** ![Squeegy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@Squeegy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squeegy)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/31 "2013-04-13T02:08:35Z")
Why is it always the dinosaurs? Why can’t we resurrect some of the other species that went extinct? How about some of the species we drove extinct ourselves? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/32 "2013-04-13T03:39:08Z")
> [@Squeegy](#): > > Why is it always the dinosaurs? Why can’t we resurrect some of the other species that went extinct? How about some of the species we drove extinct ourselves? Actually, I seem to recall that attempts to bring back (some recently extinct bird species?) have been attempted, and, of course, there is always the talk about trying to bring back mammoths (probably reverse engineered from elephants, and only mammoth like in looks, but who knows? Might be able to rebuild enough DNA to sort of build out most of a mammoth someday) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/33 "2013-04-13T08:12:38Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Just compare the state of bio-engineering in 1913 and now. Well, in 1913, the technology for splicing a gene onto an organism consisted of throwing pies at it. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/34 "2013-04-13T17:04:30Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m not about to argue that we shouldn’t create thirty-foot tall flesh eating lizard monsters, because why _wouldn’t_ we want to do that? But as close as we could come to matching what scientists thinks a real T-Rex would look and act like, it still wouldn’t _be_ a real T-Rex, just a model of what we think they were like. There’s a lot of guess work and assumptions in our current conception of prehistoric life, and those assumptions are pretty frequently challenged and revised based on new data. Bingo! What national state park, resort community or assisted living facility would not be enhanced by a flock of thirty-foot tall flesh eating lizard monsters frolicking about? None, I say. But, still, isn’t there an even more desirable job for our fine, (possibly) feathered friends? Yes, indeed: war animals! Hannibal used elephants; Timur used flaming camels; England used chicken nukes; MI5 used fear-smelling gerbils (yes, the Brits are pretty wacky), the CIA used spy-cats and the Soviets used bat bombs. The logical job for Tyrannosaurus Rex is with the United States Special Operations Force’s Tactical Assault Parachute System program for precision infiltration. That’s a no-brainer. > [@Miller](#): > > Here’s a minor example of what I’m getting at: how did the T-Rex hold its tail? If we’d been able to clone a Rex in 1950, we’d have it stand upright and have a tail that it [drags on the ground](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cs0_CAHq7TY/T940r9Rv4MI/AAAAAAAAA88/nd8HJJWbjoM/s1600/Tyrannosaurus.jpg). However, if we did it now, we’d make it lean forward and [hold its tail out behind it, as a counterbalance.](http://www.imagenesi.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Tyrannosaurus-rex-wallpaper.jpg) If we’d made the clone in the '50s, we’d have a giant lizard, but it wouldn’t be a T-Rex, because we’d have made it all wrong. If we made the clone today, we might get the tail thing right (assuming our current conception of T-Rex movement is correct), but there’d be no end of other things about the creature that we’d get wrong. From a scientific point of view, the experiment would be useless, because we wouldn’t be testing most of our assumptions about the creature. From a “Holy shit, that’s awesome!” perspective, it would, obviously, be invaluable, but if we’re going into the exercise with the understanding that we’re just creating cool lizard monsters with only a tenuous connection to pre-history in the first place, [why limit ourselves to what was around during the Jurassic?](http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/24100000/Godzilla-fan-art-godzilla-2012-24176799-500-328.jpg) And this, sir, is a prime reason to go forward with a program to create genetically altered contemporary animals to approximate long extinct creatures: to enhance scientific knowledge through experimentation to answer precisely those types of questions. The first generation of authentic looking synthetic T-Rex will be just the starting point of the research. From that point on, we can test different theories to flesh out the real T-Rex; each subsequent generation getting closer and closer. But first, we must make a few assumptions about what we will have at our disposal to work with when reach that point of making generation # 1. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say will be able to make a dinosaur in 500 years. By then, our knowledge of all aspects of genetics will be greatly expanded, not just the engineering part. For example, I believe we would have a good handle on identifying the large percentage of junk DNA common in all species, allowing for more precise focus on the important DNA. So, perhaps we will need only sequence a more manageable millions of base pairs instead of billions. So too, I believe we will be in a much better position to extrapolate more accurately the genetic differences between contemporary animals that are more advanced than dinosaurs (e.g. birds) from those that are more primitive cousins (e.g. crocodiles) in order to sequence the extinct intermediate DNA (dinosaurs) more accurately. This, I think may negate **Darwin’s Finch’s** constraint of “you can’t get there from here.” We can’t now, but in the future we should be able to make the necessary tweaks. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that in 500 years, we will be able to maintain a habitable dinosaur environment for the purpose of scientific research. Maybe it will be a terraformed Jurassic moon, large enough to run experiments on evolution. _Battle of the T-Rex Mutations_. This is where it gets fun (and informative). We now can test out different theories on real creatures and hone in on the likely course nature took when presented with the same problems, millions of years ago. We’ll synthesize a population of T-Rex with tails that drag behind them and another with tails that act as counterweights…and we let selection determine the winners. Natural selection would take too long, so we’d need a combination of natural and artificial selection (…unless, we adjusted the synthetic T-Rex’s genome to match the life cycle of fruit flies!). I’ll let you guys work out the details on _de_ tails. The more experiments run, with follow-up selective breeding, should bring us closer and closer to the real T-Rex. Question: if we create a T-Rex in this way (starting with a reverse engineered bird) and end up with one that is virtually identical in form and fashion to the real one (except for the junk DNA that I assume will be stripped away from the new one), would the genome also be virtually identical, too. Or, is it likely that two evolutionary pathways could result in identical animals with dissimilar genomes? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/35 "2013-04-13T17:14:42Z")
> [@Squeegy](#): > > Why is it always the dinosaurs? Why can’t we resurrect some of the other species that went extinct? How about some of the species we drove extinct ourselves? It’s not. **XT** already mentioned mammoths, and there are actual efforts being made to bring back the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger). Did you read the link in the first sentence of the OP? > [@](#): > > The group is creating a movement around de-extinction, and is taking the lead on efforts to bring back the passenger pigeon while helping out on other ongoing efforts to restore other extinct species including European aurochs, Pyrenean ibexes, American chestnut trees, Tasmanian tigers, California condors, even wooly mammoths. > > \ > > While de-extinction may seem only theoretical at this point, biologists are already knocking on its door. In 2003, Spanish researchers used frozen tissue from the last Pyrenean ibex, which had died three years earlier, to clone a new living twin (birthed by a goat). I don’t believe anyone is actually working on recreating dinos of the non-avian type. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/36 "2013-04-13T18:28:38Z")
> [@Squeegy](#): > > Why is it always the dinosaurs? Why can’t we resurrect some of the other species that went extinct? How about some of the species we drove extinct ourselves? As for as my OP, I chose dinosaurs\* specifically as a reference point which everyone is familiar with and understands has been extinct for a very long time—so long that intact DNA has not and will not be found. While I find the prospect of bringing back any extinct species exciting, there is a vast difference between bringing back the passenger pigeon, something we have the technology to do now, and bringing back something that has been extinct for millions of years, something we may not be able to do for centuries. I’m more interested in the latter. I’d be equally interested in bringing back some of the ancient Cenozoic mammals, however. \*…plus an OP titled, **De-extinct T-Rex Synthetically?** Is likely to garner more interest than **De-extinct Ancient Sea Cucumber Synthetically?** Unless, of course, you’re really into sea cucumbers…which would make you a little freaky. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/37 "2013-04-13T19:26:34Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > We have no way to know what progresses could be made in the next 100 years, and making any prediction about the next 1000 years would be completely ludicrous. Just compare the state of bio-engineering in 1913 and now. There’s no way to know what kind of datas we’ll be able to extract from what in 2113. Well, the real problem is that short of a time machine that data is actually gone. As in no longer extant in this universe. The data isn’t there to extract, no matter how good we get at extracting genetic data. You can’t get blood from a turnip (unless you put the blood there in the first place). And as already pointed out, even if we got the DNA, we’d still only have an approximation since we don’t also have the RNA (which decays even faster than DNA). No matter if we have the ultimate in bio-engineering, any T-Rex we develop will only be an approximation. And that might be enough for some people. But it wouldn’t be a duplicate of the original anymore. Now, if we had a time machine, sure, we could just hop back, grab a sample, and have any extinct animals we wanted. But there are actual physical limitations to recovering genetic material from fossils and recreating the original animals in that fashion. 1000 years ago, some people thought alchemy could one day convert lead to gold. We know that’s not possible. Elemental transmutation IS possible, but not via traditional alchemical means. You can say “well, wait 1000 years, and somebody will come up with a chemical potion to do it”. No, it’s not happening. We can convert lead to gold but not via that path. Likewise, recreating T-Rex from fossils isn’t going to happen. It may be possible with other exotic technologies (i.e. time travel) but it’s not happening with genetic sampling of fossils. And the proposal to take existing animals and go “back” to T-Rex would only be an approximation as already explained. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/38 "2013-04-13T20:08:48Z")
> [@Squeegy](#): > > Why is it always the dinosaurs? Why can’t we resurrect some of the other species that went extinct? How about some of the species we drove extinct ourselves? We mostly know how they taste. Where’s your spirit of inquiry? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/39 "2013-04-13T21:45:21Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Well, the real problem is that short of a time machine that data is actually gone. As in no longer extant in this universe. . How could you know that? The DNA might be gone, but it doesn’t mean that it didn’t leave tracks when it decayed that we can’t notice now but that we’ll be able to notice and analyze 100 years down the road. How could you know how much data about the living organism could be extracted from a detailled analysis of a mineralized fossil using methods and tools not yet invented? Or how much data about ancestral species could be gathered from current living species with a much deeper knowledge of evolutionary genetics? Or how much data could be found in junk DNA using some advanced technology? 100 years ago we didn’t even know that such a thing as DNA existed. And your alchemy example isn’t a good one, since as you said, it is, in fact possible to transmute a metal into another. 150 years ago, there was no known way to achieve such a result, even theorically. Or, to give a more fossil-related example, let’s read that : > [@](#): > > However, researchers from Spain, the UK and Australia combined pyrolysis gas-chromatography-mass spectrometry with an analysis of plant microfossils to identify material trapped in calcified dental plaque from five Neanderthals from the north Spanish site of El Sidrón. > > The results, published in Naturwissenschaften – The Science of Nature this week, also reveal the first molecular evidence for medicinal plants being used by a Neanderthal. How could someone have guessed in 1913 that “pyrolysis gas-chromatography-mass spectrometry” would shed light on Neanderthals’ diet? Not being able to guess, should he have stated we could never know what Neanderthal ate because the data was gone? Unless you have some solid theory showing that no data can possibly exists (as solid as, say, the impossibility to get data from a black hole in physics), you can’t assume that we won’t ever be able to retrieve any in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423/40 "2013-04-13T22:51:05Z")
Or, we could [read that](http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7803373/Fossil-DNA-expiry-date-found) > [@](#): > > A study by ancient DNA researchers at Western Australia’s Murdoch University has found the hereditary material cannot survive more than 6.8 million years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-extinct-t-rex-synthetically/655423.md?page=3)