Ancient animals could be resurrected through the genomes of their modern-day descendants, Alison Woollard, an Oxford biochemist tells the UK's Daily Telegraph. For instance, the DNA of birds could be "de-evolved" to resemble the DNA of dinosaurs, the paper adds.
“We know that birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs, as proven by an unbroken line of fossils which tracks the evolution of the lineage from creatures such as the velociraptor or T-Rex through to the birds flying around today,” Woollard says, later adding that "[i]n theory we could use our knowledge of the genetic relationship of birds to dinosaurs to 'design’ the genome of a dinosaur,”
In both the book and movie Jurassic Park, the fictional resurrection of dinosaurs relied on dinosaur DNA that was preserved in fossilized biting insects, but as the Daily Telegraph notes, a study in PLOS One earlier this year found no evidence of DNA from amber-preserved insects.
Daily Telegraph adds that any dinosaur DNA recovered from bird genomes would be fragmented and difficult to piece back together. A mammoth, it says, might have a better shot.