Cloning prehistoric animals

[deezelboy]

Think you're looking at it the wrong way.

It's more a case of primates lacking whatever most other mammals have that prevents the harmful effects, or primates having something that's susceptible to the venom which most other mammals don't.

[Dutch90]

Hm, I guess that does make more sense. Doesn't seem to be much reason for the spider to specifically target primates.

[beckmen]

Wouldn't jellyfish have evolved alongside aquatic mammals, though? It's not like mammals are completely alien to the jellyfish habitat, right?

Oh, and those worried about cloning giant fucking dinosaurs and 3-foot scorpions. I'd be more worried about them turning on a fucking potentially universe-imploding machine, hah!

[Dutch90]

Wouldn't jellyfish have evolved alongside aquatic mammals, though? It's not like mammals are completely alien to the jellyfish habitat, right?

Yeah, but jellyfish were around for hundreds of millions of years before marine mammals appeared. Jellyfish have been around since the Vendian (Late Precambrian), i.e. 600+ million years ago, the first marine mammals appeared in the Eocene apoch around 45 mya.

I can see modern jellyfish having adapted to fending off attacks from marine mammals, although the predators that initially caused the selection pressure that made them evolve their cnidocytes (the microscopic harpoon-like stingers) were like nothing that exists today.

Oh, and those worried about cloning giant fucking dinosaurs and 3-foot scorpions. I'd be more worried about them turning on a fucking potentially universe-imploding machine, hah!

Time travel, now that would open up a whole new can of worms regarding prehistory....

[deezelboy]

Wouldn't jellyfish have evolved alongside aquatic mammals, though? It's not like mammals are completely alien to the jellyfish habitat, right?

Adding to Dutch90's answer, aquatic mammals are pretty rare and don't predate jellyfish.  Jellyfish, on the other hand, are really common, and they breed fast - very few are ever likely to come into contact with aquatic mammals.  As a result, if a jellyfish had a chance mutation which gave it a specialised venom to attack mammals with, it wouldn't confer much advantage as the chances of it ever using it would be so low as to make it redundant. 

(It's a bit like Carukia barnesi's sting, which is really bad for us, but has no effect against sea turtles.  Unfortunately C. barnesi is predated on by sea turtles. It'd make sense for it to develop something to prevent this, but only if there were enough C. barnesi getting whacked by the turtles to make a difference.  A far better 'defence' is just to breed enough numbers so that predation is not significant to species survival - bit like lions and antelopes.)

To make things even worse, having a defensive option is only good as long as the organism you're trying to defend yourself against can actually recognise you possess it.  So bees and wasps have black and yellow stripes to tell insectivores to fuck off.  But taking two really nasty jellyfish at random, Chironex fleckeri is transparent and Carukia barnesi is really small - so again, it would confer no advantage against aquatic mammals.

[SiL]

We need to clone dinosaurs. And we need them walking around by the time I'm 160 and scooting around on my hoverframe.

Why?

So I can say this to the great-great-grandkids:

"Back in my day we used to walk to school! None of this genetically modified dinosaur crap; we used our own two legs, not some damn Tyrannosaur's!"

And then so their great-great-grandkids can say to them, after dinosaurs inevitably become outlawed:

"Yeah, back when the dinosaurs were around!" and not be taking the piss.

Screw the genetic sequence of a cow; we need a world in which these conversations can take place.

[Neltharion]

We will all be dead fool!

"Clever Girl"

Those will be your last words...

[SiL]

Pssh, we'll genetically engineer them to be vegetarians.

[Neltharion]

They can still open doors.

[CompanyMan]

It'd give me something new to hunt, and kill, and grill, and eat.

[Neltharion]

Again...

"Clever Girl" will be your last words....


You can't Hunt these things! They hunt you! Even in soviet russia, they still hunt you!

On a side note, if you get one, feel free to invite me over for the resulting Barbie...

[beckmen]

Even in soviet russia, they still hunt you!

(+)

What does one bring to a T-Rex hunt, anyway? A frikkin' M1 Abrams?

[CompanyMan]

I would at the raptor with more than a 12 gauge, slugs or not. As for the Big Rex...

Maybe a .458 Winchester Magnum. But nothing less that the .450, or 470 Nitro series or Express.

Then again, there is the .700 Nitro Express ( Made famous by Burt from Tremors, but at $100 a shell, better make them spot on target.

[Neltharion]

A handgun?

Are you crazy?

Wait, don't answer that.

You need at least a a RPG (have any of you seen Dino Crisis 2? Even with an RPG to the eye the Rex is still alive)

I'd go for a stock standard double barreled Shotgun (from The Lost World: Jurassic Park) for hunting T-rex's.

That or a M1 Abrams.

[severen76]

Pretty sure those are rifle rounds. Like the one made famous by Burt Gummer is an Elephant gun, I think...