Antoine Boutros - The success of the process of reviving extinct plant or animal species depends on the success of scientists in extracting a specific molecule from the amino acids present in the nucleus of the cell and containing the genetic code (DNA). If this molecule is still capable of multiplying and if it was possible to read its instructions, science is then considered to have taken a giant step toward the control of the genetics factors.

In fact, the appropriate tools to extract an ancient DNA molecule and then maintain it are not yet available. Currently, it is only possible to “read” the genetic code very slowly with an average of one nucleotide per hour. The nucleotide is a trisection from the DNA molecule and serves as “one word”. This means that the process of reading is very slow and does not allow printing the full code of the organism. For example the mosquito’s complete code constitutes the number 1 next to which come 6,020 zeros.  “Manufacturing” one mosquito requires “printing” millions of nucleotide sequences. It is noteworthy that the sequence of the genetic “words” is in itself a part of the code

Scientists believe that they may need at least three decades of finest high-tech development before they can extract the DNA from the abdomen of the fly and read it. If they were lucky enough, they would find dinosaur blood and skin preserving genetic cells and elements. Even if they don’t find them complete, it would be possible to fill the gaps and restore “the text reading”, and proteins needed to breathe life in dinosaurs. They may also adopt information related to similar animals to fill these gaps. Thus, when they complete this set of information, they “publish” the text in the form of chromosomes and inject the latter inside a cell nucleus and then, they provide this cell with an envelope (an egg shell) and the first science-made dinosaur “hatches”.

On the other hand, two scientists (Allen Wilson and Russell Higuchi) from Berkeley University managed to find the DNA in a mammoth ( a kind of elephant covered with long hair that lived for a long time two and a half million years ago and became extinct ten thousand years ago ) . 

While some of the mammoth tissues had remained alive, the cell membranes were degraded and disintegrated to the extent that most of the cellular materials were destroyed keeping about one over a hundred thousand of the total DNA molecules that were believed to be originally present in the mammoth.

These experiments gave hope to the possibility of the success of scientists and eventually to the isolation of the genetic materials in extinct organisms to study them in laboratories and revive them later on. Another support for these efforts was the experiments carried out by a Swedish scientist, Svante Paabo from Uppsala University, when the scientific journal “Nature” spoke of his success in extracting DNA from an Egyptian mummy aged 4,000 years and then made it grow in a laboratory. This was the first time scientists succeeded in copying DNA from an old human being or organism.

As for the assumption of stopping the experiments at the discovery of a very small amount of genetic codes without any adequate information to the process of revival, this is sufficient for the creation of a deep scientific-intellectual-theological controversy concerning the extinction notion and capable of causing the reconsideration of many presuppositions.

DNA is similar to a certain extent to an evolutionary clock; to find an old DNA helps to accurately identify the form of the old life and the development idea. The DNA extracted from a cell nucleus changes at 0.4% every one million years. However, the DNA extracted from the cell but from the outside of the nucleus, as the part known as Mitochondria, changes at 2% every one million years.

The two prehistoric flies (see our previous issue) that were captured in resin as if sealed in an insulated refrigerator will remain there for a few decades, which is a relatively short time, until science becomes able to provide the means to extract the great mystery in their abdomens. Humanity and not only science wait eagerly and patiently for that time when “information” will become not only a new resource and entity but also a new concept that will usher a new age of adventures.