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00:00 By 1990, the author Michael Crichton already had a decades-long career behind him, and
00:05 after multiple novels highlighting the dangers of unchecked science, he published Jurassic
00:10 Park.
00:11 The book would come to be his best known, adapted as it was into a record-breaking film
00:15 and multiple sequels.
00:17 In both the book and the movie, a futurist named Hammond enlists a team of scientists
00:22 to create a theme park full of dinosaurs created from recombinant DNA.
00:27 Jurassic Park is a story of hubris, of man approaching the glory of creation, but of
00:32 it all going slightly wrong.
00:34 It's a modern-day Frankenstein, and at the time of publishing, it was certainly a work
00:39 of science fiction.
00:41 But technology has significantly evolved in the time since Crichton and then Steven Spielberg
00:46 first introduced us to this world.
00:49 This is Unveiled, and today we're answering the extraordinary question, "Could Jurassic
00:54 Park Happen in Real Life?"
01:07 As with many Crichton novels, Jurassic Park is a speculative story that dives deep into
01:12 science.
01:13 Biology sits at its heart, specifically the subfield of genetics and cloning.
01:17 In general, the true science of genetics dates back to the experiments of Gregor Mendel,
01:22 a biologist and monk born into the Austrian Empire in 1822.
01:27 Mendel spent the 1850s and 60s researching pea plants in particular.
01:32 His goal was to establish rules of heredity traits while crossbreeding them, but his research
01:37 didn't really make a splash in the scientific community until the turn of the century.
01:41 A lot has happened since then, though, and research into genetics has progressed on a
01:45 somewhat parallel path in the interim.
01:48 Modern day studies are fixated on genes, the building blocks within cells that contain
01:52 the blueprints for biological traits.
01:55 They're linked to but not the same as DNA.
01:58 It might be said that if genes are the blueprints, then DNA is the pencil used to draw the building.
02:04 All known organisms, from a microscopic virus to the largest dinosaurs of the ancient past,
02:09 are built out of DNA and therefore wholly dependent on genes.
02:13 DNA can also be thought of as complex particle chains, with these chains containing all the
02:19 genetic instructions that eventually lead to the development, function, and reproduction
02:23 of all life as we know it.
02:25 The first steps towards discovering DNA occurred only a few years after Mendel's pea plants.
02:31 A Swiss researcher named Friedrich Miescher discovered nucleic acid inside white blood
02:35 cells in 1869.
02:37 A Russian researcher, Phoebus Levine, developed ideas on the structure of DNA.
02:43 First hypothesizing the existence of nucleotides in 1919, various scientists each found pieces
02:49 of the puzzle in the mid-20th century.
02:51 James Watson and Francis Crick are most famously credited with the discovery of DNA.
02:56 But there was a great deal of work and a great number of prior breakthroughs before them,
03:01 and much of even what they achieved is now more widely thought to have been made possible
03:05 only thanks to the concurrent research made by the lesser-known Rosalind Franklin and
03:10 Maurice Wilkins.
03:11 Nevertheless, understanding the structure and function of DNA was central to expanding
03:16 upon Gregor Mendel's early dabbling with what would come to be known as cloning.
03:21 At its simplest level, the purpose of cloning is to recreate the genome of one organism
03:26 inside of another.
03:28 Sometimes the goal is to enhance or copy specific physical traits.
03:32 Other times, scientists are looking to create an entirely identical organism.
03:36 Interestingly, cloning has almost as long a history as its parent field of genetics,
03:41 although the parameters are still up for debate.
03:43 The first modern experiment into cloning took place in 1885.
03:48 Germany's Hans Drisch took simple two-celled sea urchin embryos and physically shook them
03:53 to separate those two cells.
03:56 It was found that, from that point forward, each then split and developed into an individual
04:01 urchin.
04:02 Afterwards, and for the next century or so, chemists and biologists intensely studied
04:07 embryonic cells.
04:08 By the late 1920s, the importance of the cell nucleus in embryonic development had been
04:14 realized, and around the same time that Watson and Crick were publishing their research in
04:18 the 1950s, other scientists, Robert Briggs and Thomas King, were already transferring
04:24 embryonic nuclei from one frog cell to another.
04:27 In the eyes of many, this marks the first time that an animal was ever truly cloned.
04:32 Fast forward to the mid-1990s, though, during and just after the time of Crichton's Jurassic
04:37 Park, and the field jets into overdrive.
04:40 By now, scientists are about six years into their journey to map the human genome.
04:45 DNA and RNA research in general has been around for almost 50 years.
04:50 Nuclear transfer research has progressed to mammals.
04:53 Embryonic cells can now be cultured.
04:55 Specific genes can be spliced into or out of the nucleus, even if we don't yet fully
05:00 understand the implications.
05:02 In 1996, three years after Jurassic Park the Movie shattered box office records, researchers
05:08 in Scotland shocked the world by introducing us all to Dolly the sheep, the first mammal
05:13 cloned from an adult cell.
05:15 Dolly was created using somatic cell nuclear transfer.
05:19 The nucleus of an adult cell, an udder cell in Dolly's case, was transferred into an egg
05:24 cell without a nucleus.
05:26 The eventual result was a perfect genetic copy.
05:29 Effectively, Dolly was the genetic twin sister of one of her biological mothers, and in the
05:35 years since her birth, we've seen a growing list of animals cloned in the same or in a
05:39 similar way.
05:41 In real life up to this point, the applications of cloning are wide.
05:45 It has led to breakthroughs in medical and pharmaceutical research.
05:48 Some envision a future when fully cloned organs will keep animals and perhaps even humans
05:53 alive indefinitely.
05:55 Cloned food was first approved by the FDA in the US in 2008.
05:59 The concept of lab-grown meat is no longer all that alien, and a scaled-up lab meat industry
06:05 is said to be coming over the horizon.
06:07 One of the reasons why advocates believe we need it is to reduce the effects of climate
06:11 change and to slow or reverse the Holocene extinction, an extinction-level event that
06:16 scientists believe we're currently in the midst of.
06:19 Which brings us back to Jurassic Park.
06:22 To contemporary minds, the not-so-sci-fi science of cloning and gene editing could also become
06:28 one of the best tools to combat humanity's contribution to the Holocene.
06:33 Jurassic Park is easily the most prominent pop-culture example of a concept known as
06:37 "de-extinction," which, in short, involves extracted DNA being injected into the embryo
06:43 of an extinct animal's closest living relative.
06:46 The extinct animal is then brought to term and then effectively resurrected.
06:51 Or so the theory goes.
06:52 There have already been some tentative steps towards making this actually happen, though.
06:57 For instance, in 2003, the Pyrenean ibex was briefly brought back to life after it had
07:03 gone extinct shortly before in 2000.
07:07 Scientists used cryopreserved skin cells from the last ibex to birth another one, using
07:12 a domestic goat as a surrogate.
07:14 However, of all the clones they tried, only one was actually born, and it only survived
07:19 for a few minutes.
07:20 And crucially, compared to Jurassic Park, the experiment was really started before the
07:25 species had originally gone extinct, with scientists deliberately taking cells in preparation
07:30 for the future.
07:32 Nevertheless, there are those who believe a more Spielbergian scenario is possible.
07:36 The Harvard professor George Church has emerged as a trailblazer in gene sequencing and editing.
07:42 Operating through the biotech firm Colossal, which he co-owns, he received millions in
07:47 funding in 2021 and has reportedly devised a plan that, if it worked, would truly take
07:53 the headlines.
07:54 Church wants to bring the woolly mammoth back from the dead.
07:57 According to projections, it could happen by the end of the 2020s, with the procedure
08:01 resting on the fact that the DNA of the mammoth is a 99.6% match to that of the Indian elephant.
08:08 Using DNA samples discovered in melted Arctic permafrost, scientists, it's hoped, will
08:14 be able to edit the genes of an embryo to make them more mammoth-like and implant the
08:18 result into an elephant mother.
08:20 If successful, that elephant would give birth to the Earth's first woolly mammoth in thousands
08:25 of years.
08:26 What's more, in 2023, Colossal Biosciences announced a similar initiative to bring back
08:31 the dodo bird as well.
08:33 Importantly, there is some debate over the authenticity of the de-extinct animals that
08:38 Colossal or anyone else might produce.
08:40 Because the work is so dependent on the presence and contribution of a closest living species,
08:45 it's said that whatever is born will only ever be a copy of a mammoth or a dodo, rather
08:50 than the real thing.
08:51 In terms of a real-life Jurassic Park, however, that distinction doesn't really matter.
08:56 And if it ever did come to fruition, then the Colossal experiment would seemingly prove
09:00 that a dino-theme park scenario is possible.
09:03 The big challenge, however, would be getting eyeballs on some true dinosaur DNA.
09:08 In the Crichton novel, Hammond and his team famously find and extract dinosaur DNA from
09:13 mosquitoes that have been long frozen in amber.
09:16 In real life, it's thought that that just wouldn't be possible.
09:19 DNA is extremely fragile, and the prospect of finding intact specimens after tens of
09:24 millions of years is dicey at best.
09:27 One 2012 study, published by the Royal Society, suggests that the half-life of genetic material
09:32 is only 521 years.
09:35 Under the most ideal conditions imaginable, it was calculated that there would be a best-case
09:39 cut-off of about 6.8 million years.
09:43 And in truth, most DNA samples that have been discovered are less than two million years
09:47 old at best.
09:48 The dinosaurs breathed their last some 66 million years ago, so all signs are that we'll
09:53 never have the DNA we'd need, even if it were possible to bring them back.
09:58 That said, some possible samples have been found before.
10:02 It's thought that a hadrosaur skull fragment unearthed in 2020, for instance, may contain
10:07 cartilage samples with degraded DNA.
10:09 In 2021, a separate team claimed to have extracted DNA from a 125-million-year-old caudipterex
10:16 bone found in China.
10:18 Some scientists have even recounted exactly what happens in Jurassic Park but in the real
10:22 world, claiming to have extracted ancient DNA from amber, although across the board
10:28 those studies are disputed.
10:30 All in all, reproducing a Jurassic Park in real life actually isn't as crazy as it sounds,
10:35 in theory.
10:36 And unlike in 1990, when Michael Crichton's novel was published, a lot of the technology
10:41 to make it happen does now exist.
10:44 Were scientists able to find ancient enough DNA, and a viable modern-day embryo in which
10:49 to implant it, then we perhaps would have a dinosaur.
10:52 But don't get too excited, because the key letdown, at the moment at least, is that finding
10:57 that DNA just isn't likely to happen.
11:00 Not because we don't have the technology to, but because the DNA most probably no longer
11:05 exists anywhere at all.
11:07 So barring the freak discovery of a mass dino graveyard that is frozen and perfectly preserved,
11:14 that's why Jurassic Park is never likely to happen in real life.
11:18 An Ice Age park with a mammoth as its main attraction?
11:21 Maybe, but the T-Rex is too long gone.
11:24 Of course, there are some ideas that scientists might one day be able to backtrack through
11:29 the DNA of living species far enough to recreate a hybrid dinosaur rather than to resurrect
11:35 a real one, but that's for another time.
11:39 What do you think?
11:40 Is there anything we missed?
11:41 Let us know in the comments.
11:42 Check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you subscribe and ring the bell
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