Free Republic

Sam Neill, the genre-spanning New Zealand actor best known for his starring role in the “Jurassic Park” movies, has died, his family said Monday. He was 78. “Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life,” the family said in a statement on Instagram. “The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free,” the family said in the statement, which did not specify a cause of death. Neill, who died in Sydney, had announced in April that he was cancer-free after several years of treatment for...

New Zealand actor built career as dashing romantic leads and charismatic villains across film and televisionSam Neill, the versatile New Zealand actor whose career spanned Oscar winners and blockbusters such as The Piano and Jurassic Park, has died aged 78. The actor’s death was announced on Monday in a statement shared on his Instagram account. No cause of death was given, but Neill had only recently revealed he was cancer-free after being diagnosed with stage three angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, in 2022. “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the...

Acclaimed actor Sam Neill has died, aged 78, surrounded by family in Sydney. Neill’s death was sudden and unexpected after he was declared cancer free following an illness. “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing,” the family said in a social media post on Monday. “Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. “The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.”

A teen lesbian kiss scene in Netflix’s children’s show, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, has gone viral on social media amid mass cancellations of member subscriptions. “This is from a children’s cartoon on Netflix called Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous,” an X user wrote in a Wednesday post, sharing an image of the gay kiss. “Since when has something like this been considered appropriate for children?!” The still shot of the scene is from the ninth episode of the show’s fifth season. In 2022, Hungary’s national media regulator launched an investigation into Netflix over Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, as the lesbian kiss...

US scientists have, for the first time, made early-stage human embryos by manipulating DNA taken from people's skin cells and then fertilising it with sperm.The technique could overcome infertility due to old age or disease, by using almost any cell in the body as the starting point for life.It could even allow same-sex couples to have a genetically related child.The method requires significant refinement - which could take a decade - before a fertility clinic could even consider using it.Experts said it was an impressive breakthrough, but there needed to be an open discussion with the public about what science...

A groundbreaking new collaboration is working to resurrect one of New Zealand’s most enigmatic lost species, the South Island Giant Moa. Blending ancient knowledge with cutting-edge science, the cooperative initiative has been launched between the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre in collaboration with U.S.-based biotech firm Colossal Biosciences and filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson. The initiative seeks to place indigenous values and ecological restoration at the forefront of de-extinction science, representing a historic development in conservation biology. The collaboration marks the first time that an indigenous-led research team will direct a de-extinction initiative of this scale. Based at the University of Canterbury,...

The genome was reconstructed by Colossal from ancient DNA found in fossils The fossils date back 11,500 and 72,000 years Colossal Biosciences said: "This moment marks not only a milestone for us as a company but also a leap forward for science, conservation, and humanity. From the beginning, our goal has been clear: To revolutionize history and be the first company to use CRISPR technology successfully in the de-extinction of previously lost species. By achieving this, we continue to push forward our broader mission on—accepting humanity’s duty to restore Earth to a healthier state."

Thirty years ago this spring, legendary actor Charlton Heston called into the Rush Limbaugh radio program. He told Rush there was something he wanted to share with the audience. Here it is: Charlton Heston reading from the Michael Crichton novel Jurassic Park.

Scientists have sequenced a nearly complete woolly mammoth genome, which should bolster efforts to resurrect the Stone Age zoological rock star. Working with two mammoth specimens excavated from different parts of Russia and from different eras -- one nearly 45,000 years old, the other just 4,300 years old -- an international team of scientists has sequenced a nearly complete genome for the extinct pachyderm. The achievement provides the most complete snapshot yet of what a woolly mammoth was, which also means we're as close as we've been in a few thousand years to seeing, in person again, what a mammoth...

Commentary: A research project to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from oblivion reignites debate about de-extinction. A preserved thylacine body lies curled up on a metal table. Two scientists in white lab coats handle the body. PIC at LINK (Getty) The preserved body of a thylacine being prepared for display in an Australian museum in 2005. When Hank Greely, a law professor at Stanford University, took to the stage at 2013's TEDx De-extinction conference in Washington, DC, he posed a simple question. "De-extinction," he started. "Hubris? Or hope?" The answer, he offered to a smattering of laughter, was "Yes." Greely's...

Extinct woolly mammoths, cave lions and other long-gone species may be brought back to lifee in a new £4.5million cloning facility in Russia, scientists claim. The new Jurassic Park-style centre will be a "world class paleo-genetic scientific hub" in the world's coldest city, Yakutsk, in the remote north-east of the country. Vladimir Putin's exact plans will be unveiled in September at an investment forum but experts say the centre will aim "to study extinct animals from living cells - and to restore such creatures as the woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave lion and breeds of long-gone horses". The cloning laboratories...

Worms frozen in permafrost for 42,000 years have come back to life and are eating Shane McGlaun - Jul 27, 2018 Scientists have made a discovery that is quite mind-blowing. Roundworms found in the permafrost in two areas of Siberia have come back to life in Petri dishes. These worms had been frozen in the permafrost for tens of thousands of years, since the Pleistocene age. Scientists working on the research say that 300 prehistoric worms were analyzed and that these two were shown to contain viable nematodes.The nematodes showed signs of life after being defrosted. Scientists say the worms...

This father transported his daughter to the prehistoric era by setting up projection screens on the windows of the family home. Father Lyle Coram wowed his seven-year-old daughter Shelby by playing animations on screens around the windows of his home in Las Vegas. Footage shows how Shelby escapes her living room after spotting a T-Rex before encountering Raptors in her kitchen. The footage was filmed in June 2018.Video Here

NEW YORK — “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” was never expected to approach the record-setting heights of 2015’s “Jurassic World,” but it still took a mighty bite out of the box office with a $148 million debut, according to final ticket sales figures Monday. The opening proved that the 25-year-old “Jurassic Park” franchise remains a massive draw, even when trailed by mediocre reviews. The follow-up to “Jurassic World” (which debuted with $208.8 million three years ago) earned just a 50 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But audiences gave it an A-minus CinemaScore. After opening with an animated-feature record $182.7 million...

Star Daniella Pineda says that insight into her character was removed for time. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom reportedly passed on an opportunity to add a bit more representation to its storyline. Star Daniella Pineda said in an interview with Build that a line of dialogue that was cut from the film would have revealed her character Zia Rodriguez was a lesbian. "I understood why they cut it — for sake of time. It's me and Chris Pratt and we are in a military vehicle with all of these mercenaries," she told Build. "I look at Chris and am like, 'Yeah....

Twenty years ago Mary Schweitzer found herself the closest that anyone has ever been to a living dinosaur. As she examined a thin slice of a T. Rex bone fragment under a microscope, she realized she was looking at what appeared to be preserved red blood cells- cells which had no place in a 65 million year old fossil. It was the first time that anyone had found evidence that biological material could survive the passage of millions of years and still retain its molecular structure, challenging one of the central beliefs of paleontologists. Proving that what she was seeing...

This year is the 10th anniversary of a book called "The Republican War on Science." I could just as easily write a book called "The Democratic War on Science." The conflict conservatives have with science is mostly caused by religion. Some religious conservatives reject evolution, and some oppose stem cell research. But neither belief has a big impact on our day-to-day lives. Species continue to evolve regardless of what conservatives believe, and if conservatives ban government funding of stem cell research, private investors will continue the work. By contrast, the left's bad ideas about science do more harm. Many on...

The dinosaurs are back, and they're looking more bad-ass than ever. Jurassic World — opening 22 years after Steven Spielberg's first Jurassic Park stomped into theaters — is tracking to open to $125 million or higher in its three-day North American debut, one of the best showings in recent times. It begins rolling out Thursday night before landing in a total of 4,273 theaters on Friday, the widest release in Universal's history. Overseas, the tentpole opens in 66 markets, including China. And it's getting the widest-ever day-and-date release in Imax houses, or more than 800 locations. In North America, even...

Birds are thought to have evolved from dinosaurs, but have very different jaws. Bird-like dinosaurs such as the velociraptor have two bones at the tip of their upper jaws. In birds, those bones are fused to form a beak. By blocking two proteins that are activated when chicken embryos grow their beaks, U.S. researchers caused their jaws to "revert" to a velociraptor-like snout. The changes were observed in chick embryos that developed until they were close to hatching. To their surprise, the birds' palates, on the roof of their mouths, also became dinosaur-like. "This was unexpected and demonstrates the way...

Who doesn't love a dinosaur flick? Well, paleontologists have a few fossil bones to pick with Jurassic World, the latest in a line of dinosaur movies that once bragged about its scientific credibility. The trailer for the new movie, a reboot of the popular 1990s Jurassic Park franchise, was released Tuesday and has already been viewed more than 14 million times on YouTube. Like the original movie, Jurassic World takes place in an island safari park, where tourists visit living dinosaurs cloned from ancient DNA—until one hybrid monster goes rogue. Despite global fervor among fans, dinosaur scientists are not thrilled...