Jurassic Park comes true: How scientists are bringing dinosaurs back to life

Science and Tech ^ | 13th June 2008 | Zoe Brennan

[Snurple]

Deep inside the dusty university store room, three scientists struggle to lift a huge fossilised bone.

It is from the leg of a dinosaur.

For many years, this chunky specimen has languished cryptically on a shelf.

Interesting but useless — a forgotten relic of a lost age.

Now, with hammer and chisel poised, the academics from Montana State University in America gather round.

They are about to shatter this rare vestige of the past.

Why would they do such a thing? Dinosaurs from When Dinosaurs Roamed

Lost age: Scientists now believe it is possible to resurrect the dinosaur after the discovery of DNA relics in the wings and beaks of regular chickens

The answer is that they believe that this single fragment of a beast which stalked the earth untold millions of years ago could hold the key which will unlock the secrets of the dinosaurs.

Extraordinarily, they contend that it could lead to a real life Jurassic Park, where dinosaurs are once again unleashed on the world by scientists.

For just like in the hit Steven Spielberg movie, these men and women are intent on cracking the genetic code of the dinosaurs and opening the possibility of bringing them back to life.

Their remarkable quest will be revealed in a TV documentary, Dinosaurs: Return To Life, to be screened tomorrow.

[Brainhose]

As long as they don't try and clone Jeff Goldblum.
Now THAT would be scary.

[Justa]

Cool, reproduce them enmass ...then eat them.

Dinosaur, ...tastes like chicken.

[4yearlurker]

You got that right! Goldblum has already cloned his performance in every movie he did.

[txhurl]

This came up a few years ago and I thought, what a great way to clear Iraq of AQ. Drop about 20K engineered raptors into the streets hungry only for people having metal on their person.

Woudn’t be too hard to convert raptors into seek and destroy drones.

[Impy]

Awesome.

[Hyzenthlay]

Yeah, Jurassic Park is not supposed to be saying 'Hey, look at this fun idea!'. But, scientists being for the most part geeks/nerds/whatever (like the astronomers who describe everything they find in Star Wars terms, or the engineers who compare everything they're trying to build to superheroes), they won't say 'oh, let's clone one little vegetarian dinosaur who won't try to eat us', it'll be more along the lines of 'We can clone dinosaurs? Let's make a T-Rex! I've wanted one since I was four years old... oh, let's make raptors, too, that would be SO awesome!'