Hundreds of prehistoric insects found intact within huge amber deposit | MNN... - StumbleUpon

found with very well preserved soft tissue, only 15million years to young

Still interesting though to think that the idea of jurassic park isn't entirely impossible

Amber is fantastic for preserving small creatures and insects, depending on the amount of tree sap available at the time. It has such an earthly glow. Those insects do look really well preserved, you can see all their segments and legs.

I wonder how many different kinds there are

I wonder if the amber deposit goes back another 15 million years so I can finally

It's only Jurassic Park if the insects that were trapped were bloodsucking insects of some sort, and still had viable nucleic acids in their guts. Which is a longshot.

Also, you have no idea what a mosquito has been feeding on. You could extract DNA from a mostquito gut intact, and find that it had been feeding on a small mammal instead of a dinosaur.

There's a hope though, because it is possible for DNA to be preserved this way

Of course, it's just a matter of luck when it comes down to how complete it is.

People *have* found the DNA of what might be dinosaurs in prehistoric bloodsucking insects, it's just that it was a garbled, decayed mess. If there is a way in the future to repair or resequence DNA, even when it is badly damaged, then you might get your theropods.

Also, there was a scientist who wanted to try using genetic engineering to give chickens and other birds teeth instead of beaks, claws instead of wings, etc. so that they would look kind of like dinosaurs. It would also prove that they evolved from them since you would basically just be turning back the clock and reversing adaptations that theropod dinosaurs compiled as they became more bird-like.

How's that project going, did it ever start?

I doubt it has - the general public are annoyingly ignorant of genetic engineering and would think Jurassic Park was accurate :/

I sure hope not everyone thinks Jurassic Park was accurate otherwise we'd have people with lots of money scrambling to recover any whole dinosaur eggs or amber deposits hoping to resurrect a brachiosaurus.