date back to the time of the dinosaurs.| Jurassic Park made amber famous. The book and the movie used the idea
that amber containing an ancient mosquito might be the key to recreating dinosaurs. The
basic goal was to remove blood from the gut of a mosquito that had fed on a dinosaur just
before being trapped in tree resin which later became amber. But does amber exist which might contain ancient Dinosaur DNA (Desoxyribose Nucleic Acid = The Building blocks of Life) The film made a mistake in using amber found in the Dominican Republic. The amber from this island is between twenty and forty million years old. The last dinosaur existed sixty five million years ago, so these deposits were laid down twenty five million years too late. There are, however, a surprisingly large number of sites where amber from the age of the Dinosaurs can be found, for example: |
Historie of Life and Death. ‘The Spider, Flye, and Ant, being tender dissipable substances falling into Amber, are therein buryed, finding therein both a Death, and Tombe, preserving them better from Corruption than a Royal Monument.’ Bacon |
Location, Time Period Arctic Coastal Plain, USA, Cretaceous Lower &
Upper |
So there are plenty of places to find amber that might have insects trapped within it
containing dinosaur blood. But once you have the appropriate type of amber is the DNA
present? A number of scientists have made statements about extracting DNA from the tissue present in insects caught in ancient amber. Most prominent at the moment is Dr Raul Cano. Dr Cano has also published details about extracting living bacteria from a piece of amber containing a bee. When scientists publish findings of this sort, the experiments upon which their assertions are based have to be repeated by other scientists. They do this to confirm the ideas or theories being proposed. So far the work done by scientists to duplicate these results has not been successful. Dr Jeremy Austin of the Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom has been engaged on a project purely to reproduce this DNA research. His efforts to date have proven two key things: |
(1) The extraction of
ancient DNA is highly prone to contamination which means DNA which is discovered does
not always date back to the time of the dinosaurs.
(2) To date he has not been able to extract any ancient DNA and the likelihood of finding Dinosaur DNA does not look imminent.
The New Scientist (18 October 1997) published a fascinating article which casts significant doubts on the validity of many scientists who claim to have extracted Ancient DNA from Amber.
The article was prompted by the conclusion of 3 years research by Richard Thomas and his team at London’s Natural History Museum who states: "It is highly unlikely that geologically ancient DNA survives in any fossil material so far studied." Click on the picture to the right and this will transport you the NHM site were specific details of their research are published.
Thomas’s research was aimed at trying to replicate the work of other scientist who believe they have extracted ancient DNA. His conclusions are clear, no DNA exists within ancient fossil resin. Thomas further states: "We worked with many more samples than the total number of published reports of success".
The research they have completed in this field looks impressive and the data they have collected is hard to refute. Rob DeSalle of the American Museum of Natural History is on record as saying: "The original studies look like bad science, I’m afraid, we have to deal with this now - The Natural History Museum’s work is very good, very well done,"
Michael Braun of the Smithsonian Museum states; "its the end of the story for very ancient DNA". But not everyone agrees, Raul Cano of California Polytechnic State University, one of the leading pro amber DNA researchers denies claims that the DNA he has isolated is the result of contamination. He claims: "Just because they failed doesn’t mean we did - They are too dogmatic in their conclusions".
For the record the author of these web pages believes the tide has turned against Amber DNA research. For people who have yet to make their mind up and are interested in the Amber/DNA debate they should get hold of a copy of the New Scientist publication, like all New Scientist articles it is succinct, clear and clearly states the position today.
Other Interesting sites relating to DINOSAURS, DNA and AMBER:
http://www.calpoly.edu/~rcano/ancientdna.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/popular.html
http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~jbrown/jurassic.html
http://www.users.interport.net/~dinosaur/frontpage.html
http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/dnadino.htm
http://www.ucsf.edu/research/science_made/jurassic.html
http://helios.cr.usgs.gov/gips/0amber.htm
http://phoenix.jr2.ox.ac.uk/CGG/adnaref.html
http://www.princeton.edu/~lfl/FRS134.html
http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/008amber/molec_bio3.html
http://acm.org/~purdy/multi/Mosaic_DNA_Recover.html
http://mist.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw27.html
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:SCIENCE55/1:SCIENCE55050996.html
http://sddt.com/files/librarywire/96wireheadlines/08_96/DN96_08_19/DN96_08_19_1b.html
http://www.dinosaur.org/jparticles.htm
