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simone54's avatar

Did the theories in Jurassic Park hold up?

Asked by simone54 (7642points) October 23rd, 2014

I’m finally reading the book Jurassic Park. There is a lot of idea and theories in it about dinosaurs. I’m wondering any of these ideas turned out to be true since the 24 years after it was published.

(Obviously, I know we haven’t made dinosaurs)

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9 Answers

ragingloli's avatar

You can not get genetic material from fossilised mosquitos.
Velociraptors had feathers.
Frogs are a terrible choice to complete dinosaur genomes. Use birds instead.

Pied_Pfeffer's avatar

The response from @ragingloli is true if you mean today. Here are some factors to consider. This doesn’t mean that it cannot happen in the future.

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gondwanalon's avatar

Clone a dinosaur from 100 million year old dinosaur DNA? HA! Genetic experts cant even clone a thylacine (Australian tiger) from the DNA from a thylacine pup preserved in alcohol for a little over 100 years. Forgetaboutit happening anytime soon.

elbanditoroso's avatar

I think it’s too early to say just yet.

We have made huge strides in DNA decoding and to a degree in small- and mid-size animal cloning (Dolly the sheep), but those were with living DNA< not with DNA that had sat dormant for 50 million years.

BUT – just because we haven’t figured it out in 2014 doesn’t rule it out in 15–20 years.

simone54's avatar

I was talking about anything but the cloning.

Like Grant’s idea that dinosaurs are warm blooded or that they evolved into birds. Also, several theories about the way the dinosaurs socialize with each other.

ragingloli's avatar

Whether Dinosaurs were warm blooded like birds, cold blooded like reptiles or something in between is still debated.
That some of them evolved into birds is pretty much a fact at this point.

dappled_leaves's avatar

It was widely accepted even when the book was written, if I remember correctly. About 5 years ago, I attended several seminars talking about which species of dinosaurs were now known to have feathers, or structures that would lead to feathers. The numbers keep increasing over time.

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