Science of Jurassic Park and the Lost World: Or, How to Build a Dinosaur

This book begins with a good overview of our understanding dinosaur biology. There is a description of how the notion of dinosaurs being stupid, lumbering, cold-blooded beasts has given way to the notion of them being at least partly warm-blooded. The discoveries of iridium by the Alvarez team, and how it has revolutionized our understanding of possible dinosaur extinction, is recounted. The authors freely acknowledge that we know little about DNA. It is frozen in mammoths, but not in dinosaurs. They also acknowledge (p. 17, 42) that the idea of useable dinosaur blood inside an insect trapped in amber is conjecture. If nothing else, the digestive enzymes in an insect's stomach would probably pulverize the DNA long before an even prompt "amberization" could immobilize them. Any dinosaur DNA would almost certainly be broken into fragments, so it would be a Herculean task using overlapping segments to attempt to recreate the dinosaur's complete genome. Moreover, if the DNA was all cleaved in the same position, reassembly would be virtually impossible. Even if reconstructed, it would be challenging to get a dinosaur DNA to work together with, say, within ostrich cell. However, more modest goals may be attainable in the foreseeable future. For instance, sections of dinosaur DNA may have discernable functions once implanted into the genomes of current organisms. Anything beyond that is farfetched by today's standards of knowledge.

"Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World" are two movies that involve dinosaurs that have been recreated using advanced genetic engineering techniques. They are exciting and intense as the sight of the dinosaurs makes your heart race. Based on books by Michael Crichton, the engineering strategies used to develop the dinosaurs are explained in a great deal of detail. With all the advancements in genetic engineering, the obvious question to ask is, " Is it now possible to recreate dinosaurs?" The purpose of this book is to answer that question, and the explanations are very well done. The primary focus is on the many problems of obtaining viable dinosaur DNA, properly sequencing it and getting it to reproduce in a viable manner. These problems are currently overwhelming and the authors explain it in a manner that requires at most the knowledge acquired in high school science classes. What I liked most about the book is that the authors do not stop after explaining the problems with genetics. Other problems thoroughly discussed deal with difficulties such as the natural immunities that dinosaurs born in their natural habitat would have acquired but would no longer be available, what kind of foods that they would eat and how many dinosaurs could the islands really support. These are questions that would have created additional problems and collectively would have prevented a viable dinosaur ecology from being formed. Fortunately, movies do not have to be based on solid science to be exciting. In this book you learn the holes in the science which formed the premise of the two movies. Well written and informative, it kept me interested from the first page to the last.

I have read both Jurassic Park and the Lost world, and if your like me you wish it could be true. In this book two scientist take you on a first person view of what it would be like to be on Jurassic Park and how (if possible) to build a dinosaur. You will learn first hand how close, or far away Steven Spielberg was to the real thing. You will learn a lot of informaion on building a dinosaur like what you would need, were to fing the DNA (not where you would expect, or Spielberg for that matter.) You go to the labs with the scientist and get to make a baby dinosaur. So if you would like to make a dinosaur later in your life read this book!

This book is a very easy to read, amazingly detailed look at what it would take, in reality, to bring a dinosaur back to life with fossilized DNA (fragments). In his step-by-step approach he takes you through the test-tubes, the centrifuges, and especially the problems that would be associated with each step. This book would be very interesting for anyone with the remotest interest in science. It is helpful (not required) to have some general science background to help understand some of the concepts fully. The ONLY slight drawback that I found was that the book has pessimestic overtones throughout about the film "Jurassic Park."

"First preheat your oven to 350 degrees". How many recipes have you seen have started with that familiar instruction? Consider: "Take a piece of amber containing an insect that lived in the the Jurassic along with the dinosaurs". That is what Michael Crichton had millions of us believe was the first step in his recipe for creating the dinosaurs in his book Jurassic Park. It sounded so logical and straightforward to the general reader that we all took it at face value that everything that Ingen Corporation's scientists did was correct. We then read on, never thinking to question the science again. Until now. It reminds one of the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls back the screen and reveals the real wizard. We ignored the man behind the curtain until Rob DeSalle & David Lindley forced us to look beyond the smoke & mirrors. They have written an excellent "expose" on the errors of the dinosaur creation, but have done so in such a fun and enlightening way so as not to make the Wizard (aka M