We have taken cells from the carcass of an animal that died decades ago and brought them back to (1) _____. And so it is possible using this day’s technology to take bodies, carcasses of animals that died decades ago and resurrect them the form of a clone.
Now, we have also sequenced the genes of the Neanderthal man, meaning that at some point in the future, it may be possible to (2) _____ _____ the Neanderthal Man. In fact, at Harvard University, one professor even made a proposal at how much it would cost to reassemble the genome of the Neanderthal Man. And then of course, if a young Neanderthal boy is born, then the question is, where will you put the boy? In the ZOO or at Harvard? This is the question that we are gonna be facing in the coming decades because it is possible that we might be able to bring back the Mammoths. We are talking about the (3) _______ that walked the surface of the Earth tens of thousands of years ago and we have their genome. And it is a serious proposal now, now that we are closing in on sequencing all the genes of a Mammoth to bring back the Mammoth by inserting a fertilised egg inside the womb of an (4) ________ and having an elephant give birth to a Mammoth.
Now, dinosaurs are much more difficult. The perished 65 million years ago, not tens of thousands of years ago, however, something has happened that I thought would happen in my lifetime. And that is, we have soft tissue from the dinosaur. I never thought it would be possible in my (5) _________. If we take a Hadrosaur and crack open the thigh bone, bingo, you find soft tissue, right there in the bone barrel. Who would have thought? T-Rexes too. And (6) _______ have analysed not the DNA but the proteins inside the soft tissue. Not surprisingly, we found the proteins of chickens and also frogs and reptiles, which means, of course, that dinosaurs, we can now show biochemically are very closely related to (7) _______. In fact, we think the birds are dinosaurs that survived the cataclysm of 65 million years ago.
Now, here is another proposal, to use what is called epigenetics. Nature does not simply (8) ______ _____ good genes, nature simply turns them off. For example, we have the genes in our own body that would put hair all over our body and you can turn that gene on and create, a quote in a quote, a werewolf. In fact, in Mexico City, there are two young boys with hair all over their body that are (9) ________ in a circus. And scientists have sequenced the genes and it is a very ancient gene that they have.
With chickens, we can actually see the genes for chickens that were turned off because of epigenetics, genes that would give webbing between the (10)________ of a chicken, because a long time ago, chickens had webbed feet. And also teeth. You can actually bring back teeth inside chickens.
So, then the question is, is it possible to make the next big leap to use epigenetics, to use gene therapy, to use all kind of different therapies we have, mix all these things up in the memory of a computer, ok, and have the computer give the best fit for a (11) _______ that is like a dinosaur, insert that perhaps into the womb of maybe an alligator or whatever and perhaps give birth to an egg which would have something resembling a dinosaur.
Well, that is not possible today. But it is not out of the question, it’s not out of the question that at some point in the future we will use a computer to take all the bits of DNA from living lizards, from the extracted (12) _______ from the protein from the soft tissue from the Hadrosaurs and assemble the best mathematical approximation to a dinosaur and have a give birth to an egg.
Michio Kaku at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c-EWSmOgDc