Rawwwwwr.
Rawr.
*intro*
Hello internet, welcome to game theory! Where today we're talking about dinosaurs,
which means I have one piece of advice:
Hold onto your butts! But seriously, after four years of covering everything from quantum physics to gemology,
we finally have a reason to talk about every kid's favorite topic:
Thunder lizards! And not just dinos, but Lego dinos.
Now way back in the day as a youngin', a Mat Baby, a Tot Pat, perhaps, I loved
dinosaurs!
How big and powerful they were, how cool they looked, but most of all,
I was fascinated by the science behind them.
Yes, I was a nerd, even back then. And, if you can remember back to the nineties
simpler time of neon shirts and pogs, Jurassic Park featured scientists who
were able to extract Dino DNA from a mosquito captured in a piece of amber.
From that starting point they were able to bring these Titanic lizards back from
the dead
SOOO COOL! But now, Jurassic World takes it one step further: we see that the
scientists not only were able to rebirth the dinosaurs, but then cross the DNA
together, creating super smart, super fast, super deadly, dinosaur hybrids!
And no, we're not talking about hybrids like that Prius you got parked out front.
We're talkin' your pet iguana on steroids!
So why am I talking about this on Game Theory? Well, outside of shamelessly plugging
our new channel "Film Theorists!" -click here to check it out-
it's because the video game based on the movie -Lego Jurassic World- allows you to
participate in the process you see in the films: find amber pieces,
Extract dino DNA, and cross together some super creatures, like a Velociraptor with
Triceratops horns!
At last! A Jurassic game that perfectly simulate the movies, allowing me to
create dinosaurs without any regard for the horrible ecological consequences
and mass destruction that will inevitably follow when my ultra dinos escape. :)
Video games! Anyway, creating dino genetic Frankensteins in Lego Jurassic World
is a cool concept,
in theory... in Game Theory!!!!
Ah, sorry, force of habit. It's cool in theory, but come on!
This is purely science fiction right? We couldn't possibly create dino hybrids
today could we......could we?
You know that if I'm asking the question the answer is gonna to be pretty
mind-blowing, so in the words of Sam Jackson:
"Hold onto your butts-" wait I already used that once this episode. Uhh.. clever girl?
yeah that's that's another quote from the movie, but it doesn't really apply
here...
Let's start by picking apart the science: genetic hybridization: crossing together
DNA strands to create a super-powered monster! Sounds like either movie magic
or ultra futuristic, but actually, it's kinda old news.
People have intentionally been doing genetic hybridization for years.
In fact you might have one of these *genetic creations* in your home right now!
Want a dog that looks like a poodle, but isn't super high maintenance?
Meet the cockapoo..*giggle* Cockapoo *inhale*
Ah, it's funny just saying it. Meet the cockapoo a distrib- *cockapoo* XD
-A disturbingly adorable cross between a poodle and a cocker spaniel. Any of you
have a non allergenic cat? *sniff* Genetic hybridization at work! Or a whale with
the intelligence of a dolphin. The... whal-phin, I guess, it would be? There are
genetic hybrids all over the world that have happened either accidentally in the
wild, or to create animals that are cuter, bigger, smaller, live longer, or don't give
me allergies :D
The key to creating a genetic hybrid is having two species with similar enough
genetics, that they match up to create a viable animal.
So, what about dinosaurs? They're all just big lizards, right?
Well... kind of. To figure out whether dino splicing is actually possible, we need to
take a closer look at one of the dinosaur's closest modern relatives:
Nope. You would think so, right? Yeah, now you're just- WAIT really?! Believe it or not,
the chicken is ACTUALLY one of the closest descendants we have to
prehistoric dinosaurs, even closer than alligators and lizards... MIND BLOWING, right?!
And get this: in the modern world, it also has one of the genomes that we
know the most about, mostly because we've been manipulating its genetics for years
to create bigger, meatier, buckets of extra crispy, original recipe fried chicken! :D
So, say you're geneticist and you want to create a chicken with bigger wings.
You have two options: the first would be to get your chicken to do some bicep
curls, but poultry sized barbell sets cost a breast and thigh.
So you're best going with your second option: mapping out the genome of the chicken.
If you'll recall from sixth grade biology class, DNA is a long string of coded
information that gets translated into everything in your body, from your height
to your skin color to that weird mole on your right butt cheek- *giggle* I'm sure at least one
of you right now just put: HOW DID HE KNOW?!!!?!?!
Oh, I know, I know ;) Once they figure out what part of the genome gets translated
into wing size, they compared the DNA of chickens with different sized wings to
find the gene producing the beefiest wing size of the bunch...
Or, I guess it wouldn't be beefiest
it would be chicken-iest wing size... That's just weird :/ Anyway, the gene is chopped out,
copied, and then put into a DNA vector. Technically, it's a virus, like the
virus that you get when you have the common cold, but instead of giving the
chicken a runny nose, this virus gives the chicken wings like a 7-47, no joke!
They use this DNA vector to inject the better genes into the egg cells of the
chicken, so that when the egg hatches it's genetically guaranteed to have the
right genes. As you can imagine, this process is difficult and complicated,
even if you're just changing one feature the chicken had already. But what about
crazy stuff? It's one thing to create bigger slices of meat,
seedless watermelons, or hypoallergenic dogs, but what we see in Lego Jurassic World
with dinosaurs having all sorts of weird mixes, that should take things to a whole
new level, right? Well, maybe not. In principle, anything that lives has genes
and whether you think it's a good idea or not to mess with animal's DNA, science
has come up with some amazing hybrids that might convince you that
Lego Jurassic World is more Sci, and less Fi. Back in the early 2000's,
agriculture scientists Jeffrey Turner and Paul Ballard were studying, you know,
"agricultural stuff"
I guess... I don't know what agricultural scientists do, but they noticed that the
material used by spiders to make their webs had some pretty remarkable properties:
spider silk is an incredibly strong material, resistant to heat degrading and
is far lighter than most other strong materials we use every day.
It's one of those things that can be made into everything from artificial
tendons in your body, to bulletproof vests thinner and stronger than Kevlar...
-after being properly treated- but, the thing is, to actually make anything
useful out of the silk, you have to harvest it from the spiders...
OBVIOUSLY that would require a TON of waiting and like, a million horror movies
worth of spiders- UGHHH God,
I can't even think about it! These guys were able to avoid making the scariest
farm in history, by isolating silk making jeans from a golden or weaver spider and
insert those silk genes into a GOAT.
Into a goat! I kid you not! Kids with spider genes. Get it? Kids and kids that
never mind
This is wild. The results, goats, that produced both milk and spider silk!
Whether you think this is cool or actually just kinda icky,
it's one of a whole slew of examples where genes from totally different
genomes or combined to create animals with extra features and special powers.
Want a glow in the dark cat?
You can have one with the jellycat, a cross between a cat and a jellyfish.
How about a mouse that can chirp like a bird? Try the singing mouse.
And those are just two of my favorites. The list of animals with bizarre superpowers just goes on.
But now, that brings us back to the dinosaurs. Based on our research,
it seems like combining dinosaur DNA would be a pretty simple process, right?
I mean, if we can do it with a goat a spider,
this should be a pretty open and shut case, right? Theory over, super satisfying!
Well, not really. It turns out that when it comes to creating super customized
hybrid dinos, it's not the technology holding us back,
it's the archaeology. Remember, in order to combine DNA, you have to map the genome.
You have to basically know where these biological bricks go, and what they
do before you start mixing and matching parts from two different dinos,
and that's a problem when you start talking about cells that are 60 million
years old
I mean, think about it. We just sequenced the human genome like, 12 years ago,
and there are a few billion living examples of that walking around to test from.
That's like genome mapping on easy mode. But getting actual viable samples of dino DNA?
That's like, ultra insanity hard mode! We're talking 60 MILLION years ago,
MILLION YEARS AGO,
all the cells that would have contained
usable DNA are literally turned to dust. Dust in the wind, like that Kansas song-
Don't you play it Earl!
Stop it! We don't have enough money to license that, come on!
and that's only considering we want to find one cell, and then figure out which
ones do the super cool things like produce a razor-sharp jaws vs. the ones
that do the lame stuff, like, uh, provide an extra bone in the foot, or something.
The genes that do that totally got the short end of the genetic stick.
So, believe it or not
creating a hybrid super dino, like a Trycarisaurus Rex,
would be genetically possible, IF we were somehow able to find the basic dinosaur cells.
Robert Irwin: 2003, the world finds dinosaur cells!
MatPat: Talk about convenient timing.
Robert Irwin: That year in Montana, a team was excavating T-Rex skeletons way out in the middle of nowhere
It was such a remote area of the wilderness, that they actually had to
airlift bones out by helicopter!
But, while they were trying to get the bones out, a T-Rex thigh bone broke in two.
At first, they thought it was terrible!
Until they took a closer look, and they found strange patterns inside the bone,
soft tissue still left after 68 million years!
They couldn't believe what they had found, but it got better!
As upon further investigation, they found dinosaur blood vessels inside there,
with tiny dinosaur cells, becoming one of the most exciting dinosaur digs ever!
Wait, so according to a video from a kid at the Australian Zoo,
Robert Irwin, wait that's the crocodile hunter's son!
According to Robert Irwin's research,
it would seem like we might be able to find the DNA we need to make this a possibility.
Robert Irwin: That's right!
MatPat: Is it just me, or are these videos talking to me?
Even though we haven't found a lot of dino DNA yet,
that dig showed the world that even millions of years later, we're still able
to find what it takes to maybe, one day, build our own dinosaurs, and believe it or not,
we might not even need a full dinosaur, because of, you guessed it, the chicken.
After studying dinosaur fossils and comparing them to bird DNA,
Scientists have found that some of the dinosaur-like genes in birds are turned off in their modern form.
If there were a way to turn those genes back on,
scientists could actually bring back some of the dinosaur traits that chickens have hidden away,
or, just given a chicken a dino mouth instead of a beak.
Sound like a stretch?
Think again. It's already been done!
Pretty incredible, right MatPat?
MatPat: How did an embedded video just talk to me, and know my name?
Internet is a weird place, man. But, I guess you can't out the Australian dino genius!
*bell dings*
So yeah, getting the DNA might be really really difficult,
but research shows it's certainly not impossible.
Chickens with dino noses? Bones with 60 million year old cells hidden inside? Ha!
So, what's the verdict, then? Well, when I started researching for this episode,
I thought for SURE that Lego Jurassic World would be COMPLETELY disproven.
But in fact, I was pretty shocked at how much progress we've made towards
actually being able to create a hybrid dinosaur.
We have the technology,
we have modern descendants of dinosaurs to work with,
and someday, we may even have enough original DNA to make a new dinosaur a new reality.
Now, if only electric fence technology would advance fast enough to effectively pen in these things,
we would be golden.
But hey, that's JUST A THEORY!
A GAME THEORY!
Thanks for watching!
Welcome back to the SUPER AMAZING END CARD TOURNAMENT where this week,
the question is, well, a bizarre one, actually.
We're taking two hybrids, and deciding which dino wins the day.
Who would win in a fight, a Lego T-Rex with Triceratop's horns,
or a squad of Lego Raptors with stegosaurs tails?
I CANNOT WAIT to see you guys try and debate this one out in the comments.
Click on one to choose, or vote in the comments,
and next time, I'll let you know who you all thought won.
And hey, if this video got you excited about romping through Lego Jurassic World,
click the link in the description to order your own copy.
To be a hundred percent transparent with you guys,
this video was sponsored by the game, and it's thanks to them that I was able to partner with Robert Irwin,
which was incredibly cool, but let me remind you guys right here and now that
whenever any of us theorists do a video supported by a company,
the final findings are always strictly our own.
It's something we pride ourselves on, and in this particular case,
if I didn't enjoy Lego games, or couldn't say what I wanted,
I wouldn't have done the video.
So, rest assured, our integrity isn't for sale,
and I want to make sure that you guys know that.
Seriously, Lego games are just fun and cute.
And dinosaurs are awesome!
Tot Pat is so jelly right now! And by jelly, I mean jealous.
I just used jelly as an abbreviation to show how stupid that word actually sounds.
But in the meantime, if you'll excuse me,
I've got a strange hankering for some buffalo chicken wings.
Huh. Wonder why...