Dinosaurs Can Come Back in the Near Future

Thinking ahead here. By 2050, we'll have flying cars, augmented reality eye lenses will replace phones, dinosaurs will come back, 3D printers will be able to print food, wait a second, what? Dinosaurs? That's no joke. Your childhood dream of a real-life Jurassic Park could actually come true in 30 years. And yes, scientists were initially inspired by the famous movie. They wanted to find a mosquito stuck in amber and extract dinosaur DNA from it. The real thing about movies is that they tend to ignore the laws of reality. Real-world scientists came across a big problem. The oldest DNA sample they were able to get was only 1 million years old. Only because all the dinosaurs went extinct some 65 million years ago. That and DNA is an incredibly fragile thing. The chances that it remained intact since the Cretaceous period are slim to none. So instead of looking for dinosaur DNA hanging out in the belly of an ancient mosquito, they decided to take DNA from the closest descendants of these reptilian giants. No, it's not dinosaur-like reptiles such as crocodiles and Komodo dragons. It's actually birds. Over millions of years of evolution, dinosaur hands turned into wings, and their predatory elongated jaws became beaks. Well, you don't need to be an expert geneticist or paleontologist to see some coincidences. Pelicans bear striking similarities to pterosaurs, and ostriches look kinda like velociraptors, only fluffier. So which bird do you think they found to be the closest living relative to dinosaurs? Massive birds of prey like the Andean condor or the bald eagle? Maybe a hawk or falcon? Nope, the closest thing we have to dinosaurs today is the chicken. I know, I know, this goofy farm bird doesn't look anything like a dinosaur. But hold your judgment and take a closer look at how it walks. Let's get rid of the feathers, cover it with scales, give it a toothy mouth instead of a beak, and stick a long, muscular tail on it. And voila! We have a mini Tyrannosaurus! Deep inside their DNA, chickens have the genes of formidable predators. Scientists want to genetically engineer that DNA to try and reverse evolution. If it goes right, they'll get a dinosaur hatching from the egg – the due date set for the goal by 2050. But will a world shared with dinosaurs be as cool as it sounds? Let's fast-forward to 2060, into a hypothetical future where dinosaurs of all sizes have become commonplace. What will change? At first, the theme parks and zoos will reappear. Yes, the Jurassic Park universe will become reality – a new era, if you will. And it'll bring lots of money. Of course, modern technology won't allow the dinosaurs to escape – that's a mistake only the movies would make, right? After some time, you'll see dinosaur pet stores popping up, and people will be able to purchase their own little dino. True, they probably won't play fetch or learn smart tricks – their brain won't be much different from a chicken's, after all. Maybe they'll make cute accessories to go on your handbag! We'll also have dino-sports – jockeys will race on the backs of velociraptors. On second thought, those predators probably wouldn't let you saddle them so easy. Perhaps the fastest-running yet plant-eating hadrosaur can replace horses. People will find agricultural use for these massive reptiles. Imagine you live on a farm, and you have your own huge diplodocus to help you plow the land. You'd also have plenty of fertilizer. We obviously couldn't let them live free in the wild. The large herbivores would eat all the plants, and there wouldn't be any left for other animals. As for the carnivores, what mammal could survive with a tyrannosaurus, spinosaurus, and velociraptor in the food chain? The oceans would be a safe place for them to thrive. At least it's big enough to accommodate them. Dinosaur-like marine reptiles, such as plesiosaurs, gnathosaurs, and mosasaurs could live happily without humans interfering in their business too much. Though our species has a pretty insatiable appetite for seafood, so no promises! Now how about this? What if the dinosaurs had never disappeared in the first place? Suppose that meteorite had fallen into the ocean or flown past our planet? The dinosaurs have been spared, but not for long. They'll eventually face a problem no beast has been able to overcome – humans. Our ancestors hunted giant mammoths, and they could probably handle the dinosaurs too. And that includes the mighty and feared T-Rex. The movies might show this monster outrunning a jeep, but in reality, it wasn't all that fast. Researchers analyzed their body mass and found that a Tyrannosaurus' bones wouldn't have been able to sustain a running speed of 30 mph, an estimate scientists have been throwing out there for years. If the bones didn't break, the animal would've just fallen over. Plus, the dinosaurs' legs were permanently bent, which wouldn't have let it run very fast. The final verdict? The terror-inducing predator could only run about 12 mph max. Certainly not slow, but a human can compete with that. So would they survive all these years until the modern day? Unlikely. Especially for the gigantic ones. Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Bright-Sidosaurus – I made that last one up. Big animals need big meals, and there are only so many plants to sustain them all. But some might make it. I mean, there are present-day species of sea turtles that swam millions of years ago. Maybe small running dinosaurs would survive. They'd live in the streets like pigeons, or in the sewers with the rats. Some people even think that dinosaurs have survived to the present day. We just don't know where they're living. And I'm not talking about the Loch Ness Monster or Megalodon, but real dinos from the Cretaceous period. Check online, and you'll find videos of these super-survivors. Wink wink. Of course the shots are fake, and proving it is too easy. It's just really good CGI, much like what you see in the movies. The interesting thing is that we really don't know what the dinosaurs looked like or how they sounded. All we have are their bones. Did they have feathers? What color was their skin? Did they roar like a lion or cluck like a chicken? I guess we'll have to wait until 2050 to see and hear these megalizards in person. Hey, if you're watching from the future, let us all know down in the comments how life with the dinosaurs is going. 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