About three decades ago, an idea of scientists recreating dinosaurs first exploded into the public with the 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park. In the film, researchers extract prehistoric DNA from trapped mosquitoes and genetically modify them to de-extinct dinosaurs, and showcase them in a theme park for tourists. But it ends in chaos after the creatures to break free and wreak havoc. While the movie remains a cautionary tale, Elon Musk seems open to the challenge. The conversation started on X (formerly Twitter) when tech entrepreneur Nikita Bier posted that a real-life Jurassic Park project might actually be “fundable” today. Musk replied with a simple, six-word response: “I hope someone makes this work.”
From science fiction to science fact: Is this achievable
The film series got a kind of reboot in 2015 with a slightly different take with technology taking a greater role. In 2021, Max Hodak, a co-founder of Musk’s brain-chip company Neuralink, suggested that humans likely have the technology to build a version of the park if they wanted to. Just like the film, Hodak noted that these wouldn’t be “authentic” dinosaurs but “exotic new species” created through genetic engineering and selective breeding.“We could probably build jurassic park if we wanted to. wouldn’t be genetically authentic dinosaurs but maybe 15 years of breeding + engineering to get super exotic novel species,” Hodak said in 2021.In a separate post, Hodak argued that humanity could use biotechnology to create entirely new forms of biological diversity.“Biodiversity (antifragility) is definitely valuable; conservation is important and makes sense. But why do we stop there? Why don’t we more intentionally try to generate novel diversity?”However, despite the enthusiasm from the tech world, the scientific community argues that it is not possible to have a T-Rex roaming around the world.While scientists have successfully cloned sheep (like the famous Dolly in 1996), and most recently, three Dire wolf pups using CRISPR gene-editing technology, dinosaurs pose a unique problem: time. They said that DNA has a “shelf life” and degrades completely long before fossils are formed. Since dinosaurs have been extinct for roughly 65 million years, finding usable genetic material in soft tissue is currently considered impossible by modern standards.