• Question: In Jurassic Park they clone something from the blood found in a mosquito fossilised in amber. Is that possible??

    Asked by ariana to Chris, Eva, Michael, Paddy, Philip on 12 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Philip Denniff

      Philip Denniff answered on 11 Jun 2011:

      Fossilised mosquitoes have been found in amber. True. Dont know if blood has ever been recovered from the bits of a fossilised mosquito. DNA can be isolated from blood. DNA can be inserted into a host cell and grown on. So in theory yes but the science is not there yet

    • Photo: Paddy Brock

      Paddy Brock answered on 12 Jun 2011:

      No, not really, but the idea is valid and pretty cool. For example, as Phil says, they identify species of insect in amber and infer things about ancient ecosystems and environments from the combinations of species they find. They have also extracted DNA from amber and identified species of bacteria using genetic techniques. However, we don’t have the technology or expertise to recreate organisms just from their genetic code. Have a look at this link: http://people.ku.edu/~jbrown/jurassic.html

    • Photo: Chris Jordan

      Chris Jordan answered on 12 Jun 2011:

      Do mosquitoes go back far enough? … Hmmm. I just Googled and it looks like they do (and there are other biting insects like black flies found too.) It doesn’t look like they’ll be able to get decent (or any DNA) from these insects, but I just find it worrying that mosquitoes have been around and survived for so long. How are we ever going to get rid of scottish midges these thing survive far better than people.

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