(upbeat music)
- What's up guys?
Michael here.
Remember back when we were kids,
and Jurassic Park made it seem
like we were definitely getting real dinosaurs
at some point, but then it just never happened?
Well, we do, and it sucks.
So on today's episode of Science is Hard,
we're going to ask the eternal question.
Why don't we have dinosaurs yet?
But before we dive in,
a quick reminder that in Jurassic Park,
dino DNA was extracted from a mosquito
that had bitten a dinosaur and was then preserved in amber.
Scientist and mixed the dino DNA with frog DNA,
and made dinosaur babies.
And Michael Creighton,
author of the book the movie was based on,
didn't pull this out of his ass.
It was a real scientific theory at the time.
So if we wanted to follow the lead of Jurassic Park,
we would need to start with DNA.
Mosquito blood stuck in amber might work in the movies,
but we'd want to go all the way,
and acquire some freshly squeezed dinosaur ejaculate
to get pure DNA.
But since nobody's excavated at dinosaur circle jerk yet,
we have our work cut out for us.
What sort of conditions would we need
to get a good sample of dinosaur juice?
Well, it would have to be something like this:
Let's imagine there's a T-rex, we'll call him Tom.
Tom has been going through a rough patch recently.
His girlfriend, Suzie, left him for another dinosaur,
his arch-nemesis Tony,
and this has ruined his confidence.
After yet another failed hunt,
he needs to get his mind off of his troubles,
and feel good for a brief moment.
So he decides to make passionate love to himself.
But unlike you and I,
Tom can't simply reach down
and take himself to pound town with his hands,
because Tom has tiny T-rex arms.
By the way, this is one of the miracles of evolution.
Think about it.
What other species has such an easy route
to solo sexual pleasure?
Thank God Charles Darwin invented evolution.
So Tom has to venture out into the wilderness
to find a soft and warm surface to use
as his Jurassic pump prop,
you eventually finds a nice hole in a hillside,
likely the nest of some prehistoric weasel,
and because this isn't Tom's first one-armed rodeo,
pokes his head inside
to make sure no one is home,
as he doesn't want his meat to be someone else's dinner.
After he sees that the coast is clear,
he saddles up and grinds his pain away
in the moist cushion of mother earth,
because Tom is an anxious Rex.
He closes his eyes during his prehistoric push party
to avoid seeing anything that could remind him of Suzie.
But this masturbatory quirk leads to his demise,
because right when he enters the strokes of no return,
eyes closed, and tail firmly planted upon the ground,
which is what happens to a dinosaur
right before ejaculation to provide stability,
a massive iceberg crashes down on Tom,
right at the precise moment
that his organic coconut milk
starts to flow towards freedom.
Let's say all of this happens.
And one lucky scientist happens to chance
upon this pornographic scene.
And we find a perfectly frozen tube
of Tom's organic dick paste, ready to hit the microwave,
and knock something up.
Sounds good, right?
But even if we have the juice,
we still need a viable host
to birth this sharped tooth bastard.
Now we'd have to find an appropriate animal
to play host to Tommy's defrosted dessert sauce.
One whose embryos would actually have some possibility
of birding a legitimate dinosaur,
even though this could lead to some fun hybrids.
Ultimately it's a useless endeavor,
because none of these animals
are going to be compatible with Tom's ancient Alfredo sauce.
Even if there were some animal capable
of incubating Tom's vintage wank whiskey,
there is a whole other issue we've ignored
up until this point:
The half-life of DNA is 521 years,
meaning that even in perfect conditions,
after 1.5 million years,
Tom's organic milk stout is about as useful
as a Blockbuster gift card.
Considering that the oldest DNA that's ever been sequenced
was from a 735,000 year old horse,
and the youngest dinosaurs we know of
are 65 million years old, it's not looking good.
And even Tom's perfectly stored frozen yogurt
is still very unlikely to provide a viable sample.
So at this point, cue the Boyz II Men,
because it seems like we've come,
- [Boys II Men] ♪ To the end of the road. ♪♪
- Implanting the thawed dino jizz into any current species
would not ultimately create a new baby dino.
So our buddy, Tom dimaxed for nothing,
you know, died while climaxing.
It's a thing, we swear.
But much like Tom's masturbatory grip,
we can't let go of our hope for a real dinosaur.
And we're in luck as there is another option
that might actually work.
And it's one sure to please any diehard Chick-fil-A fan.
Welcome to the wonderful world of atavism activation.
As we've already seen, shoving Tom's melted bro snow
into any currently available embryo, is a useless endeavor.
But, this doesn't mean
that chickens aren't still useful for our aims.
In simple terms,
atavism activation is a process
that can bring back ancestral characteristics
that have been lost through evolutionary changes,
via precise genetic modifications.
Basically by turning off certain genes,
we can roll back evolutionary developments.
You know how sometimes babies are born with tails?
This doesn't happen when a couple has a three-way
with a possum.
It's actually something buried deep inside human DNA.
that's like, whoa, remember when we used to have tails
in a previous evolutionary stage?
Let's do that again.
And scientists are currently exploring ways
in which we can push evolution backwards,
to uncover past traits in a species' deep genetic memory.
So with the right gene hacking,
a chicken can help us make a dinosaur.
But sadly,
we won't be needing Tom's viscous love tonic anymore.
So he died for nothing.
Sorry, Tom.
We hope to die doing what you love (church bell rings).
Now that we're done with Tom,
it's time to meet the real hero, Jack Horner.
While you might know him for being the inspiration
for Dr. Grant in the original Jurassic Park film,
Horner has been the paleontology consultant
for the whole Jurassic Park film franchise.
He's also the one leading the charge on atavism activation,
which he lays out in his book, "How to Build a Dinosaur."
According to Horner,
it's possible to activate and deactivate certain genes
in a chicken embryo,
to restore long dormant dinosaur characteristics,
such as teeth, tails, and raptor fingers.
This chicken-a-saurus, as Horner calls it,
would be halfway between the coolest science project ever,
and the weirdest art project ever,
as it would involve reviving all the right genetic traits
to give us something kind of like a dinosaur.
Horner is working on the project now,
which has been largely funded by George Lucas.
So it seems like we have it.
Using a process
by which we can reactivate dormant genetic traits,
you can turn a chicken into a dinosaur.
So there you have it, folks.
We've solved the problem (horn blows) of how, wait, what?
Oh, you got to be sh (beeping) ing me?
Oh, okay.
Sorry, everybody.
It looks like we're not done yet.
Turns out that even if atavism activation works,
we have a whole other host of problems to deal with.
For one thing,
the chicken-a-saurus would be coming of age
in an environment wildly different
from that of it's genetic ancestors.
And we're not just talking about climate change,
the very structure of our atmosphere
has changed dramatically
since the last dinosaur walked the earth.
it'd be the dinosaur equivalent of the forgotten classic
Encino Man,
which subtly and carefully
explores the crisis which occurs
when a frozen caveman reanimated
into an environment different from his own.
(dogs barking)
So if this thing is going to survive, we've got two options:
One we're going to have to fit it with a dinosaur gas mask,
or two, which is more likely,
we'll have to create an artificial climate zone
that approximates the atmospheric conditions
that our friend Tom was used to.
Not an easy task, but not impossible.
So now we have a real life dinosaur
living in its own crossover of Biodome and Jurassic Park.
This is really setting the stage
for the Pauly Shore and Jeff Goldblum buddy comedy
that we've all been asking for.
So surely we're done now, right?
Nope, because we still haven't talked
about what in the hell this thing is going to eat.
As the dinosaurs food chain is non-existent.
I mean, we could feed it chicken nuggets,
but at this rate that might be a weird form of cannibalism.
But once we figure that out,
we're still left with one final question:
Does this even count as a dinosaur?
We didn't get to use any prehistoric genetic material
from Tom, or anybody else.
As writer Chris Edwards argues,
"Even if radical genetic engineering succeeds
"in constructing something that looks like a dinosaur,
"it is clear that it can never bring back
"what existed more than 65 million years ago."
So while the dream of Jurassic Park is impossible,
it would still be pretty damn cool
to have this modern version
of what we think a dinosaur would have looked like.
And if that's not good enough for you,
you're probably one of those insufferable types
that won't eat Chipotle because it's not authentic.
And if that's the case, you'll get what you deserve,
which is of course a massive chicken-a-saurus eating you
and then shitting you out in front of your old school.
That's what we'll train them to do, because why not?
Thanks for watching.
And remember,
if you ever decide to masturbate in an Arctic environment,
be sure to keep your eyes open
so you can avoid any incoming glacial activity.
And let us know if there's any scientific innovations
or technologies from movies or TV
that you'd like to see us investigate.
Thanks for watching, later.