Outline
Report circulating via social media claims that scientists at the UK’s John Moore University have successfully cloned a dinosaur. The report features a picture that supposedly depicts the cloned baby dinosaur.
Brief Analysis
The claims in the message are nonsense. Scientists have certainly not cloned a dinosaur. The image in the report depicts a newborn macropod (kangaroo, wallaby or wallaroo), not a dinosaur. The story originates from NewsHound, a website that publishes all manner of fanciful nonsense disguised as news reports. Nothing published on the NewsHound site should be taken seriously.
Example
BRITISH SCIENTISTS CLONE DINOSAUR
Scientists at Liverpool’s John Moore University have successfully cloned a dinosaur, a spokesman from the university said yesterday.
The dinosaur, a baby Apatosaurus nicknamed ‘Spot,’ is currently being incubated at the University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Detailed Analysis
According to a report that is currently circulating via social media, British scientists have managed to clone a dinosaur. The report features an image that supposedly shows the cloned baby dinosaur.
The report claims that scientists working at Liverpool’s John Moore University were able to extract DNA from Apatosaurus fossils and inject it into a ‘fertile ostrich womb’.
But, the claims in the message are utter nonsense. Scientists have not cloned a dinosaur, in Britain or anywhere else. The image of the ‘dinosaur’ used in the hoax report actually depicts a newborn macropod (kangaroo, wallaby or wallaroo). The picture appears on an Australian Wildlife Carers webpage that provides instructions for rescuing macropods.
The fake story comes courtesy of NewsHound, a website quickly becoming notorious for churning out fanciful drivel disguised as news reports. The site is responsible for another recent viral hoax that falsely claimed that a woman stranded on an island for seven years was discovered after her SOS sign was spotted on Google Earth.
Nothing on the NewsHound website should be taken seriously.
If a dinosaur had been successfully cloned, it would be a major news event all around the world. But, of course, there are no credible reports that support the claims in the NewsHound article.
It cannot be ruled out, that, at some future time, scientists may have the necessary knowledge to clone a dinosaur. But, such a time is a long way off. And ethical scientists may choose not to proceed with such cloning even if they could.
Original Source : https://www.hoax-slayer.net/hoax-british-scientists-clone-dinosaur/