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N.Y. Web Site of the Week - Sunday, May 26, 1997

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The Science (and Non-Science)
of Jurassic Park and
Jurassic Park2: The Lost World

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Movies and fiction are always fun and exciting, but is everything that you see or read really true?
D.I.G 's "experts" reveal the real "truth" behind Jurassic Park!
Sometimes fiction can lead to way kewl discoveries, but be sure to know the difference!

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Article List
• Dinosaurs From Amber? by Garry Platt
• Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World Science Bloopers!
• Blooper Snoopers! Is your name here?
• The Lost World Movie Junket by Kelly Milner Halls
• The Science of Jurassic Park, Book Reviews (use Back button to return here)
• Jurassic Park Movie News(use Back button to return here)

Dinosaurs from Amber?
by Garry Platt

Dateline: May, 1997, England

Jurassic Park made amber famous! The book and the movie used the idea that amber containing an ancient mosquito might be the key to recreating dinosaurs. The basic goal was to remove blood from the gut of a mosquito which had fed on a dinosaur just before being trapped in tree resin which later became amber.

But does amber exist which might contain ancient Dinosaur DNA (Desoxyribose Nucleic Acid = The Building-blocks of Life)? The film made a mistake in using amber found in the Dominican Republic. The amber from this island is between twenty and forty million years old. The last dinosaur existed sixty five million years ago, so these deposits were laid down twenty five million years too late!

There are, however, a surprisingly large number of sites where amber from the age of the Dinosaurs can be found in quite large quantities, for example:

 

Amber Sites:
Location, Time Period

Arctic Coastal Plain, USA	Cretaceous
Atlantic Coastal Plain	Lower and Upper Cretaceous
Cedar Lake, Manitoba, Canada	Cretaceous
Chinle Formation, USA	Upper Triassic
Choshi, Japan	Lower Cretaceous
Grassy Lake, Alberta, Canada	Upper Cretaceous
Isle of Wight, UK	Lower Cretaceous
Israel	Lower Cretaceous
Jordan	Lower Cretaceous
Kuji, Japan	Upper Cretaceous
Lebanon	Lower Cretaceous
Seward, Nebraska, USA	Upper Cretaceous
Switzerland	Cretaceous
Taimyr, Russia	Upper Cretaceous

So there are plenty of places to find amber that might have insects trapped within it containing dinosaur blood. But once you have the appropriate amber is the DNA present?

A number of scientists have made claims about extracting DNA from the tissue present in Cretaceous age insects.When scientists make claims of this sort, the experiments upon which their assertions are based have to be repeated by other scientists. They do this to confirm the ideas or theories being proposed. So far the work done to duplicate these results has not been successful.

Dr. Jeremy Austin of the Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom has been engaged on a project purely to reproduce this DNA research. His efforts to date have proven two things:

(1) The extraction of ancient DNA is highly prone to contamination (it gets dirty!) which means DNA which is discovered does not always date back to the time of the dinosaurs.

(2) To date he has not been able to extract any ancient DNA and the likelihood of finding Dinosaur DNA does not look imminent.

Even though movies and books make things sound exciting and plausible, it doesn't always mean it is true! It is interesting to study the differences between science and fiction: fiction can sometimes lead to new knowledge and discoveries. 
Dr. Garry Platt, Senior Consultant - CMTC, has collected fossils since he was a young boy and has specialised in amber during the last 5 years (when he has sufficient income to buy it and the patience to study it!) His Web Page can be visited at: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/science/palaeo/project1/index.html

"I always like to discuss and talk about amber. Anyone wishing to contact me can do so at the following address: garry@gplatt.demon.co.uk "
 

RESOURCES
Other Interesting sites relating to DINOSAURS and AMBER:
http://www.calpoly.edu/~rcano/ancientdna.html
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The Lost World Movie Junket

Sometimes Junket isn't just a dessert!
Find out how lucky journalists get to see cool movies before everybody else!

Dateline: May, 1997, Hollywood, CA, USA.

By Kelly Milner Halls

Being asked to participate in Universal Picture's Lost World press junket was like traveling to dinosaur heaven. From the moment I slipped my card key through the slot and flung open my fancy hotel room door, I was surrounded by cool stuff --- everything totally "dinosaur." I did check the closet, though, to make sure there weren't any raptors hiding there.

A "press junket" is a fancy name for a special invitation. Movie studios ask people who write for magazines and newspapers to see movies early so they can help spread the good news. They fly them to Hollywood from all over the world and feed them and let them stay in nice hotels and give them way cool stuff! And they let them see the movie before anybody else in the whole universe gets to see it.

"Welcome, Kelly Milner Halls," the note on the bedside table said. "Please enjoy these Lost World gifts." Beneath the note was a tan duffle bag boldly stamped with the Jurassic Park/Lost World logo. Zip! I couldn't wait to open that bag.

It was like Christmas. Lost World t-shirts, Lost World baseball caps, Lost World sound track C-D's, a shape shifting, collectable Lost World button, even a miniature Lost World dinosaur crate that r-r-r-r-roared when you opened the lid. Gee, did I look cool wearing them all at once! "If I die now," I thought, "I'll die a happy girl."

Ah, but I lived --- long enough to see the movie. So there I was in the dark in this huge movie theatre with zillions of other people, and guess who is sitting next to me? Give up? Well, I was sitting elbow-to-elbow with the movie's paleo advisor, Dr. Jack Horner, a real-life dinosaur hunter/finder/paleontologist!

As every remarkable Stan (mechanical dinosaur effects) Winston / Dennis (Computer Graphics dinos from ILM) Muren dinosaur appeared for the first time on screen, I could turn to the master of behavioral paleontology for advice. "Jack," I asked (whispering so that everybody else in the theatre couldn't hear us), "could Stegosaurus really take a tail swipe at a lady paleongologist?"

"Kelly," he answered, "They could!. But their tails were made for fighting off much bigger predators. She's only a little human. Why would they even want to?"

When the actors babbled dinosaur theory, I could sneak a peek at Dr. Horner to see if he agreed. "Jack?" I whispered again as two paleontologists argued about how well (not how bad) T.rex could smell. "Is that really true??"

"Yes, Kelly," he replied with a broad grin. "That time, Sarah (the actress) was quoting me."

Even when I screamed and nearly jumped out of my seat (dang those nasty, over sized raptors), it was fun sitting next to Dr. Horner. I swear, I can still hear him laughing.

After that, they took us out for dinner and we got to talk to lots and lots of people who worked on the movie!

Was The Lost World pure science? Absolutely not. Even Dr. Horner agrees --- this was just a Hollywood movie. But it was fun with a capital "F." And for me, those two elements --- paleo-science and fun -- are a very natural combination. I think there is room in this crazy world for a little of both. And I think Dr. Jack would agree. And we promised to meet again in 3 years at the junket for Jurassic Park 3!
 

Kelly Milner Hall, "Girl dino writer." That about says it all, but she also wrote a cool book called "Dino-Trekking." She has also written for lots and lots and lots of magazines. We're happy she dropped in. Y'all come back, huh, Kelly?

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Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World Science Bloopers!

How sharp are you? Did you notice any mistakes in Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World? D.I.G. is making a BIG list of them! Here are the ones that folks found so far (with their contributors.) E-Mail us the ones that YOU find! New comments are this color.

Here's a list of the dinos in the movie:

T.rex,
Stegosaurus,
Compsognathus,
Triceratops,
Pachycephalosaurus,
Parasaurolophus,
Velociraptor,
Pterosaurs
Mamenchiosaurus(?)
Did we miss any?
 
• Did comsognathus hunt in packs? Or alone? -- D.I.G.
• One raptor leapt twenty feet in the air to attack. I don't think raptors would have attacked that way.. -- Jonathon Woolf
• Historically, the dinos in the movie would not have lived at the same time. So they would not necessarily be able to adapt to each other: herbivores and carnivores in nature have strategies for escaping and eating. Would the Stegosaurs have been able to get away from the "Raptors?" -- D.I.G.
• Dinosaurs in JP or LW were genetically engineered with lots of frog DNA and whatnot, and so would behave in whatever manner the moviemakers wanted, irrespective of how dinosaurs might actually have behaved 65 million years ago. .George Olshevsky
• "Why do the predators live on one part of the island and the herbivores on another? Name me one ecosystem on the planet that works that way. Further, name me one island on earth smaller than (say) Madagascar ... that could support that many large animals in a functioning ecosystem " -- Ronald I. Orenstein, International Wildlife Coalition
• "Could Pteranodon really have perched on a limb?"-- Ronald I. Orenstein
• If T. rex can a bus driving full out, why can't it catch a bunch of people running away on foot? -- Ronald I. Orenstein
• Some people have questioned whether a male and female T.rex would both be the same size. So far there is no definitive evidence on gender, so no one knows for sure if one would be larger than the other, or both the same size. Most animals in nature exhibit what is called "sexual dimorphism" which means that males and females are not exactly alike.
• Stegosaurus - In Premiere magazine, its tail pitches downward and virtually touches the ground. Stegosaur tails do not pitch downward! Darren Naish
• Stegosaurus - Head too broad, no throat pouch, only 4 digits on manus and all had hooves - Darren Naish
• Stegosaurus, They are HUGE, much bigger than real ones.Real ones are 7-9m long (about 21-27 feet). They also seem to have spikes that stick up vertically rather then horizontally, but the plates alternate.- Jeffrey Martz
• Stegosaurs, like cloning Velociraptors, apparantly involves massive doses of steroids; they are HUGE. They also seem to have spikes that stick up vertically rather then horizontally, but the plates alternate..- Jeffrey Martz
• The Velociraptors are too big! - lots of people.
• Stegosaurs - recent findings seem to show that the back plates are in a single line, not two. - D.I.G.
• T. rex might not have been able to "lick." It would be dangerous for a long tongue to go past such sharp teeth! The poor T.rex might bite her own tongue! - Darren Naish
• "If all these dinosaurs are mixing in from different parts of the Mesozoic, and some are better adapted to some predators than others, why wouldn't all but a few herbivores be wiped out? All the Stegos should be gone, since the raptors (who they never evolved with) would just mop them up!" - Judy Molnar
• Stegosaur - If the stegosaur spikes point out to the side and top, how could the spikes go straight down through the tree? Many readers have come up with complicated ways that the steogosaur could stand or swing its tail to make this happen. What do you think?
• Baby T. rex - How did they pick up a baby T. rex that is 6 or 7 feet long and carry it around like it was a feather pillow case? It must have been pretty heavy and pretty wiggly! - Betty Cunningham
• Baby T. rex - Wouldn't a baby T. rex try to bite them? If they didn't cover its eyes, it would not have calmed down. - Judy Molnar
• What killed and ate everybody on the ship that brought T. rex to San Diego? - Samuel R. Delaney, Science Fiction writer.
• Pterasaurs - Well, they're not really dinos, but they are cool! Anyway, they looked a little small, and they flew like sort of strange birds. - D.I.G.

 
• Other people who sent us some of the same bloopers:
Timothy L. Crabtree (May 1997); Greg Jensen (June 1997); Michel Desbiens (August 1997); Dann Pigdon, Fernando (September 1997); Todd Hagen, Seno Hadi - Bandung, Indonesia (October 1997); Edward R. Talbot (Dec. 1997); Tom T (February 1998); Michael Garfield (April 1998); Kristin Søbstad Rye - Oslo/Norway (June1998); Jorge Talbot (September 1998); Alexa Battisti (October 1998); John Mancini (May, 1999);

 
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Ceated May 14, 1997
updated May 26, 1997, February 16, 1999, August 4, 1999, 10/08/99, June 1, 2006
(c)1997, 1998, 1999,2006  Edward Summer, Dinosaur Interplanetary Gazette, All Rights Reserved