British Scientists Supposedly Cloned a Dinosaur? Here's What Really Happened

The prank news item claimed that British scientists had managed to clone a live dinosaur called 'Spot'.

Despite appearing several days before April 1st, the imaginative piece published on controversial website 'News Hound' announced that scientists at Liverpool's John Moores University had successfully produced a baby Apatosaurus and were incubating it at their lab.

The story soon went viral, with links appearing all over social media. The 'news' was met with both excitement and dismay, with some commenters likening the ethics of the event to those explored in Steven Spielberg's classic movie "Jurassic Park".

As it turned out however the story was, unsurprisingly, a complete hoax. An image of the alleged dinosaur included with the piece was actually that of a baby kangaroo and the quotes from the scientists involved were bogus.

While it isn't outside the realm of possibility that we may one day be able to bring dinosaurs back from extinction, there's still a long way to go before such an outcome becomes a reality.

From the article:

The dinosaur, a baby Apatosaurus nicknamed "Spot," is currently being incubated at the University's College of Veterinary Medicine.

The scientists extracted DNA from preserved Apatosaurus fossils, which were on display at the university's museum of natural science. Once the DNA was harvested, scientists injected it into a fertile ostrich womb.

"Ostriches share a lot of genetic traits with dinosaurs," said Dr. Gerrard Jones, a biology professor at LJMU and the project's leading scientist. "Their eggshell microstructures are almost identical to those of the Apatosaurus. That's why the cloning worked so perfectly."

Those in the scientific community say the dinosaur cloning – the first ever of its kind – is a milestone for genetic engineering.

"I used to think this kind of thing could only happen in the movies," said Dr. Gemma Sheridan, a LJMU chemistry professor. "But we're making it happen right here in our lab. It's astounding."

Source: Independent