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Fossilized Mosquito Has Blood-filled Abdomen
ananyo writes "Jurassic Park's iconic image of a fossilized blood-filled mosquito was thought to be fiction — until now. For the first time, researchers have identified a fossil of a female mosquito with traces of blood in its engorged abdomen. The fossilized mosquito contains molecules that provide strong evidence of blood-feeding among ancient insects back to 46 million years ago (paper abstract). The insect was found not in amber, as depicted in Jurassic Park, but in shale sediments from Montana. After 46 million years, however, any DNA would be long degraded."
Don't be gross. Why is everythign about sdrinking blood and vampires these days, it is so not cool and so stupid and childinsh. Get over it already!
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I know, it's pretty awful to mention that it all started in that Movie with a blood filled Mosquito.... There you have it, I said it and there is nothing you can do about it!
Ars Technica had a great article on this matter.
Given that (i believe) shale sediment is not translucent, how was the mosquito found anyhow?
this very moment, and Michael Smith The failure of And she ran market. Th3refore, impaired its bought the farm.... driven out by the
After 46 million years, however, any DNA would be long degraded.
That's what they used to say about Neandertal DNA. Turns out the DNA does indeed begin to fragment but you can still piece it together for a very long time after it begins to degrade. In this case that statement is it's probably right and 46 million years is too long and even if you could recover some Dino DNA (from any source) it will be fragmented beyond recovery with current technology. Even so, we should not stop trying to defy established notions of what is impossible. A Scientist at Yale University recently discovered that pigments do not degrade, they sometimes fossilise which is an amazing discovery since it means that if we find fossilised dinosaur skin, feathers or insect exoskeletons for that matter we can figure out what color long extinct animals were. It was almost a scientific axiom that we would never know what color dinosaurs were and it certainly blew me away when I found out that was wrong.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
If any proteins are intact, you could work out their amino acid sequence and determine the gene encoding that produces it. It's not perfect, but it's better than giving up.
More such scientific discoveries will be made.
Fraccing is GOOD!
What a find.
please, don't use the DNA. :P
we already know how it will end
...finds a way.
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Well so do I, but you don't hear me bragging about it!
...Fossilized Mosquito Has Blood-filled Abdomen...
Fossilized Mosquito HAD Blood-filled Abdomen...
There. Fixed that for ya...
...why not mosquitos?!!! The most vile, annoying creatures to ever to roam the earth!
The real bottom line is that we should be searching for cold spots, like Antarctic caves, with relict animal DNA that might average -57C (-70F). Then let's see how many million years we can drive DNA recovery.
Great, maybe they can find some original DNA from Hannah, new-miley sucks...
After 46 million years, however, any DNA would be long degraded
So you're sayin' there's a chance!
Rather than try to clone a dino, the way technology is advancing, it would probably be easier in a few years, to simply design a dino from scratch.
Fossilized Congressman has money-filled Abdomen.
Film At Six
Because its not that old. When they find out its in not so bad of shape, they'll be trying to figure out how it could of lasted that long, when the real answer is its not that old, just like the T-Rex red blood cells that were found a few years back.
That's my prediction.
After 46 million years, however, any DNA would be long degraded."
No problem, That's where our geneticists take over. Thinking Machine supercomputers and gene sequencers break down the strand in minutes - - - - and Virtual Reality displays show our geneticists the gaps in the DNA sequence! Since most animal DNA is ninety percent identical, we use the complete DNA of a frog - - - - to fill in the - - holes and - -complete - - the - - - - code! Whew! Now we can make a baby dinosaur!
That red blood calls generally don't have DNA.
Bummer, huh?
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
I remember reading, about a year ago, of a discovery where the DNA itself was long since degraded, but that the molecules had left something like the molecular equivalent of a footprint in mud, such that scientists could (at least theoretically) recreate the original DNA molecule from the impressions left in (I believe) bone fragments.
Does anyone have info on this?
The DNA is long degraded. That's disappointing I was looking forward to barbecuing up mastodon steaks.