One scientist I spoke to remarked that it was “absolutely extraordinary that a scientific journal like Nature would hold on to an article to wait for the opening day of a movie”. The timing was not a coincidence – and this didn’t go unnoticed. The results were reported in Nature on June 10 – one day after the Jurassic Park premiere and one day before its release in cinemas across the United States. It is during this time that Jurassic Park’s influence is most evident.Īs well as being the year that the film was released, 1993 also marked a turning point in the world of ancient DNA research: a team of researchers extracted and sequenced DNA from a 125-130m-year-old ancient weevil in Lebanese amber. Scientists call it the “Wild West” and even “the Jurassic Park phase”. It was in the 1990s that the feverish search for the most ancient DNA from the most iconic fossils began. ILM/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment Dinosaurs were always a frequent feature of museums, but breaking open perfectly preserved bones to discover what was inside was a novelty. Its beginnings tell a story of science, speculation, hope, and hype – and Michael Crichton, the author of the original Jurassic Park novel, was quick to pick this up. Hope and hypeĪncient DNA research walks a fine line between science and science fiction, something stressed by its short but sensational history. I’ve spent the past year interviewing scientists about the history of ancient DNA research and the effects of Jurassic Park on their work as part of my doctoral degree. In the wake of the 1993 Jurassic Park film, scientists who have anything – or even nothing – to do with palaeontology or molecular biology are almost always asked the same question: “Can we resurrect a dinosaur?” The answer is always an emphatic no.īut to some extent, Jurassic Park did actually drive and develop the science and technology of ancient DNA research. Science has apparently evolved too: the genetically-engineered dinosaurs are to take a secondary role to a new star of the show, a genetically-engineered hybrid, worryingly named Indominus Rex. Two decades on and Jurassic Park has morphed into Jurassic World, the one and only dinosaur theme park.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |