Jurassic Park db forum

[QUOTE](SSJDinoTycoon42 Posted on 07.27.2005)
more like they tried to put as much scientific credibility as they could into a monster movie


They tried, but alot of it was guess work. The look, behavior, and mannerisms of all the dinosaurs were all just the ideas of the JP production team. Sure, they brought in Jack Horner as a consultant, but even paleontologists don't know how dinosaurs behaved. Jack could tell them how much force dinosaurs could inflict in a bite, how much they weighed, and what they probably hunted, but he couldn't tell them how they behaved; there's only so much information you can get from fossils.

Michael Crichton definitely did his home work, but the science in the story was flawed. There was one thing he didn't consider; the dinosaur DNA was found in fossilized mosquitos, mosquitos that have probably sucked the blood of more than one type of dinosaur. So my question is how in the heck could you isolate and extract one sample of T-Rex DNA when the mosquito sucked on the blood of maybe 13 different species of dinosaurs? I'm no geneticist, but that sure doesn't seem possible to me. /dry.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="<_<" border="0" alt="dry.gif" />

hm, good question and point...
*sits puzzling over question*

i'm not sure, but i think i heard somewhere that Jack Horner specialized in dino behavior. Paleontologists can learn a lot about behavior from remains, just look at all the documentaries and how they changed over time. why did they change? because more evidence was found to show that they behaved differently.

actually the fact that he used a mosquito is the impossible part. in the book "the Science of Jurassic Park: How to Build a Dinosaur" they explain that even if a mosquito had been stick in sap immediately after biting a dinosaur, it would not die right away, and even if it did, the stomach juices would still be breaking that blood down. meaning that if we could extract a mosquito from amber, there would be nothing left of that blood. plus, amber dries things out, meaning it would dry that mosquito up. he was on the right track when he chose a mosquito in amber, but with more reseach it proved to be the wrong choice. however, they do go on to speculate that if they found a piece of flesh in amber(i forget how though, that would be even more rare than a mosquito) they would have a better chance of extracting DNA. plus amber would not likely be found in a tropical area. they said that amber would actually most likely be found in New Jersey.

Actually, before Jurassic Park it was theorized that dinosaurs could be created by grinding bones and extracting the proteins from there. But it could have been afterwards as well. I'm not too sure. But the thing is that they were darn right.

Now, to get back on topic, any newer ideas that we can use?

i think they used the grinding idea in Operation Genesis, although they never mention it. do you know if they still think they can get DNA from bones??? i thought i heard somewhere that it was proven false. i could be wrong though



well, there have been many ideas in this topic, i can try to put them together and list them if you want

There is DNA in bones, but it is often degraded to such a degree to the point it is useless.

oh i see then, so it would be like, grind up a million skeletons to make one dinosaur

Yeah, except that there are no million skeletons. But, if you were lucky, you can cut several chunks from a single skeleton and perhaps find enough proteins to copy more of them and by that way perhaps tell more about the animal.

i see....but no cloning...

Hm, in a way it is a little like cloning, but instead you'd be taking DNA samples from many other dinosaurs of the same speices instead of just one.
Hm, actually, if you did this, you'd end up risking the fact that you MIGHT be combining 'health' weaknesses (eg: arthritis). Not only this, but their are other risks in this concept too...