Rawwwwwr. Rawr. *intro* Hello internet,
welcome to game theory!
Where today we're talking about dinosaurs, which means I have one piece of advice: Hold onto your butts!
But seriously, after four years of covering
everything from quantum physics to gemology, we finally have a reason to talk about
every kid's favorite topic: Thunder lizards!
And not just dinos,
but Lego dinos. Now way back in the day as a youngin', a
Mat Baby, a Tot Pat, perhaps, I loved dinosaurs! How big and powerful they were, how cool
they looked, but most of all, I was fascinated by the science behind them. Yes, I was a nerd, even back then. And, if
you can remember back to the nineties simpler time of neon shirts and pogs,
Jurassic Park featured scientists who were able to extract Dino DNA from a
mosquito captured in a piece of amber. From that starting point they were able
to bring these Titanic lizards back from the dead SOOO COOL! But now, Jurassic World takes it
one step further: we see that the scientists not only were able to rebirth
the dinosaurs, but then cross the DNA together, creating super smart, super fast,
super deadly, dinosaur hybrids! And no, we're not talking about hybrids like
that Prius you got parked out front. We're talkin' your pet iguana on
steroids! So why am I talking about this on Game Theory? Well, outside of shamelessly plugging our new channel "Film Theorists!" -click
here to check it out- it's because the video game based on the
movie -Lego Jurassic World- allows you to participate in the process you see in
the films: find amber pieces, Extract dino DNA, and cross together some super
creatures, like a Velociraptor with Triceratops horns! At last! A Jurassic game that perfectly
simulate the movies, allowing me to create dinosaurs without any regard for
the horrible ecological consequences and mass destruction that will
inevitably follow when my ultra dinos escape. :) Video games! Anyway, creating dino
genetic Frankensteins in Lego Jurassic World is a cool concept, in theory... in Game Theory!!!! Ah, sorry, force of habit. It's cool in theory, but come on! This is purely science fiction right?
We couldn't possibly create dino hybrids today could we......could we? You know that if I'm asking the question
the answer is gonna to be pretty mind-blowing, so in the words of Sam
Jackson: "Hold onto your butts-" wait I already used that once this episode. Uhh.. clever girl? yeah that's that's another quote from
the movie, but it doesn't really apply here... Let's start by picking apart the science:
genetic hybridization: crossing together DNA strands to create a super-powered
monster! Sounds like either movie magic or ultra futuristic, but actually, it's
kinda old news. People have intentionally been doing
genetic hybridization for years. In fact you might have one of these
*genetic creations* in your home right now! Want a dog that looks like a poodle, but
isn't super high maintenance? Meet the cockapoo..*giggle* Cockapoo *inhale* Ah, it's funny just saying it. Meet the
cockapoo a distrib- *cockapoo* XD -A disturbingly adorable cross between a
poodle and a cocker spaniel. Any of you have a non allergenic cat? *sniff* Genetic
hybridization at work! Or a whale with the intelligence of a dolphin. The... whal-phin, I guess, it would be? There are genetic hybrids all over the world that
have happened either accidentally in the wild, or to create animals that are cuter,
bigger, smaller, live longer, or don't give me allergies :D The key to creating a genetic hybrid is
having two species with similar enough genetics, that they match up to create a
viable animal. So, what about dinosaurs? They're all just
big lizards, right? Well... kind of. To figure out whether dino
splicing is actually possible, we need to take a closer look at one of the
dinosaur's closest modern relatives: Nope. You would think so, right? Yeah, now
you're just- WAIT really?! Believe it or not, the chicken is ACTUALLY one of the
closest descendants we have to prehistoric dinosaurs, even closer than
alligators and lizards... MIND BLOWING, right?! And get this: in the modern world,
it also has one of the genomes that we know the most about, mostly because we've
been manipulating its genetics for years to create bigger, meatier, buckets of extra
crispy, original recipe fried chicken! :D So, say you're geneticist and you want to
create a chicken with bigger wings. You have two options: the first would be
to get your chicken to do some bicep curls, but poultry sized barbell sets
cost a breast and thigh. So you're best going with your second
option: mapping out the genome of the chicken. If you'll recall from sixth grade biology
class, DNA is a long string of coded information that gets translated into
everything in your body, from your height to your skin color to that weird mole on
your right butt cheek- *giggle* I'm sure at least one of you right now just put: HOW DID HE KNOW?!!!?!?! Oh, I know, I know ;) Once they figure out
what part of the genome gets translated into wing size, they compared the DNA of
chickens with different sized wings to find the gene producing the beefiest
wing size of the bunch... Or, I guess it wouldn't be beefiest it would be chicken-iest wing size...
That's just weird :/ Anyway, the gene is chopped out, copied, and then put into a DNA
vector. Technically, it's a virus, like the virus that you get when you have the
common cold, but instead of giving the chicken a runny nose, this virus gives the
chicken wings like a 7-47, no joke! They use this DNA vector to inject the
better genes into the egg cells of the chicken, so that when the egg hatches
it's genetically guaranteed to have the right genes. As you can imagine, this
process is difficult and complicated, even if you're just changing one feature the chicken had already. But what about crazy stuff? It's one thing to create
bigger slices of meat, seedless watermelons, or hypoallergenic
dogs, but what we see in Lego Jurassic World with dinosaurs having all sorts of weird
mixes, that should take things to a whole new level, right? Well, maybe not. In
principle, anything that lives has genes and whether you think it's a good idea
or not to mess with animal's DNA, science has come up with some amazing hybrids
that might convince you that Lego Jurassic World is more Sci, and less
Fi. Back in the early 2000's, agriculture scientists Jeffrey Turner
and Paul Ballard were studying, you know, "agricultural stuff" I guess... I don't know what agricultural scientists do, but they noticed that the material used by spiders to make their
webs had some pretty remarkable properties: spider silk is an incredibly strong
material, resistant to heat degrading and is far lighter than most other strong
materials we use every day. It's one of those things that can be
made into everything from artificial tendons in your body, to bulletproof
vests thinner and stronger than Kevlar... -after being properly treated- but, the
thing is, to actually make anything useful out of the silk, you have to
harvest it from the spiders... OBVIOUSLY that would require a TON of waiting and like, a million horror movies worth of spiders- UGHHH God, I can't even think about it! These guys
were able to avoid making the scariest farm in history, by isolating silk making jeans from a golden or weaver spider and insert those silk genes into a GOAT. Into a goat! I kid you not! Kids with
spider genes. Get it? Kids and kids that never mind This is wild. The results, goats, that
produced both milk and spider silk! Whether you think this is cool or
actually just kinda icky, it's one of a whole slew of examples
where genes from totally different genomes or combined to create animals
with extra features and special powers. Want a glow in the dark cat? You can have one with the jellycat, a
cross between a cat and a jellyfish. How about a mouse that can chirp like a
bird? Try the singing mouse. And those are just two of my favorites. The list of
animals with bizarre superpowers just goes on. But now, that brings us back to
the dinosaurs. Based on our research, it seems like combining dinosaur DNA would
be a pretty simple process, right? I mean, if we can do it with a goat a spider, this should be a pretty open and shut
case, right? Theory over, super satisfying! Well, not really. It turns out that when
it comes to creating super customized hybrid dinos, it's not the technology
holding us back, it's the archaeology. Remember, in order
to combine DNA, you have to map the genome. You have to basically know where
these biological bricks go, and what they do before you start mixing and matching
parts from two different dinos, and that's a problem when you start
talking about cells that are 60 million years old I mean, think about it. We just sequenced
the human genome like, 12 years ago, and there are a few billion living examples
of that walking around to test from. That's like genome mapping on easy mode.
But getting actual viable samples of dino DNA? That's like, ultra insanity hard
mode! We're talking 60 MILLION years ago, MILLION YEARS AGO, all the cells that would have contained usable DNA are literally turned to dust.
Dust in the wind, like that Kansas song- Don't you play it Earl! Stop it! We don't have enough money to
license that, come on! and that's only considering we want to
find one cell, and then figure out which ones do the super cool things like
produce a razor-sharp jaws vs. the ones that do the lame stuff, like, uh, provide an
extra bone in the foot, or something. The genes that do that totally got the
short end of the genetic stick. So, believe it or not creating a hybrid super dino, like a Trycarisaurus Rex, would be genetically possible, IF we were somehow able to find
the basic dinosaur cells. Robert Irwin: 2003, the world finds dinosaur cells! MatPat: Talk about convenient timing. Robert Irwin: That year in Montana, a team was excavating T-Rex skeletons way out in the middle of nowhere It was such a remote area of the
wilderness, that they actually had to airlift bones out by helicopter! But, while they were trying to get the
bones out, a T-Rex thigh bone broke in two. At first, they thought it was terrible! Until they took a closer look, and they
found strange patterns inside the bone, soft tissue still left after 68
million years! They couldn't believe what they had
found, but it got better! As upon further investigation, they found dinosaur blood
vessels inside there, with tiny dinosaur cells, becoming one of the most exciting
dinosaur digs ever! Wait, so according to a video from a kid
at the Australian Zoo, Robert Irwin, wait that's the crocodile
hunter's son! According to Robert Irwin's research, it would seem like we might
be able to find the DNA we need to make this a possibility. Robert Irwin: That's right! MatPat: Is it just me, or are these
videos talking to me? Even though we haven't found a lot of dino DNA yet, that dig showed the world that even
millions of years later, we're still able to find what it takes to maybe, one day,
build our own dinosaurs, and believe it or not, we might not even need a full
dinosaur, because of, you guessed it, the chicken. After studying dinosaur fossils and comparing them to bird DNA, Scientists have found that some of the dinosaur-like genes in birds are turned off in their modern form. If there were a way to turn those genes back on, scientists could actually bring back
some of the dinosaur traits that chickens have hidden away, or, just given a chicken a dino mouth instead of a beak. Sound like a stretch? Think again. It's already been done! Pretty incredible, right MatPat? MatPat: How did an embedded video just talk to me,
and know my name? Internet is a weird place, man. But, I
guess you can't out the Australian dino genius! *bell dings* So yeah, getting the DNA might be really really difficult, but research shows it's certainly not impossible. Chickens with dino noses?
Bones with 60 million year old cells hidden inside? Ha! So, what's the verdict, then? Well, when I started researching for this episode, I thought for SURE that
Lego Jurassic World would be COMPLETELY disproven. But in fact, I was pretty shocked at how
much progress we've made towards actually being able to create a hybrid
dinosaur. We have the technology, we have modern descendants of dinosaurs to work
with, and someday, we may even have enough original DNA to make a new dinosaur a new reality. Now, if only electric fence technology
would advance fast enough to effectively pen in these things, we would be golden. But hey, that's JUST A THEORY! A GAME THEORY! Thanks for watching! Welcome back to the SUPER AMAZING END CARD TOURNAMENT where this week, the question is, well, a bizarre one, actually. We're taking two hybrids,
and deciding which dino wins the day. Who would win in a fight, a Lego T-Rex
with Triceratop's horns, or a squad of Lego Raptors with stegosaurs tails? I CANNOT WAIT to see you guys try and
debate this one out in the comments. Click on one to choose, or vote in the comments, and next time, I'll let you know who you all thought won. And hey, if this video got you excited about romping through Lego Jurassic World, click the link in the description to order your own copy. To be a hundred percent transparent with you guys, this video was sponsored by the game, and it's thanks to them that I was able to partner with Robert Irwin, which was incredibly cool, but let me remind
you guys right here and now that whenever any of us theorists do a video
supported by a company, the final findings are always strictly
our own. It's something we pride ourselves on, and
in this particular case, if I didn't enjoy Lego games, or couldn't say what I wanted, I wouldn't have done the video. So, rest assured, our integrity isn't for
sale, and I want to make sure that you guys know that. Seriously, Lego games are
just fun and cute. And dinosaurs are awesome! Tot Pat is so jelly right now!
And by jelly, I mean jealous. I just used jelly as an abbreviation to show how
stupid that word actually sounds. But in the meantime, if you'll excuse me, I've got a strange hankering for some buffalo chicken wings. Huh. Wonder why...
Anyone else notice that when saying "a whale with the smarts of a dolphin" he showed 2 dolphins? The Orca is actually a dolphin (Delphinidae family), not a whale. I expected better from you, MattPat! :p
I love MatPat, and GT, I've seen every episode several times. Something about these latest theory videos just doesn't seem right. This discussion of Dino DNA for example has already been done and fleshed out in dozens of research papers and studies. MatPat's theories used to be about things that weren't so "obvious" or do readily available in already completed research. For example, the Rosalina theory or Mortal Combat scream of death. I dunno, maybe I'm just crazy but it seems like the theories of late have been a little "lazy", or not very unique/original.
I'm sorry, but what's dead should stay dead if he's right. As cool as it would be, we wouldn't ever be able to truly contain them. I'm not comfortable with people trying to bring back dinosaurs, and I don't want to wake up one morning as see "MASSACRE! HUNDREDS DEAD DUE TO ESCAPED DINO" on the news headlines.
Tl;dr please be wrong Matpat, just this once.
The DNA that we have found isn't even close to as useful as you think it is though MattPat. DNA unfortunately has a chemical half life of around 520 years. So even though we found Dino DNA, it ends up being pretty useless because of natural degradation.
HOW DID HE KNOW???
ah the Roomba, my favorite animal hybrid
What's the deal with the fezes lately?
Whats the music at around 5:00?
If you guys like impossible creatures, try the game 'impossible creatures'!