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dinosaurs

Could We Build Jurassic Park?

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Tyrannosaurus Rex - pixabay

Welcome to Jurassic Park. As we open the gates to this zoo of previously extinct creatures, how would you expect the dinosaurs behind them to look? For those who have read or watched “Jurassic Park,” the image of a dinosaur may have already been planted in your mind. Your perception might be plagued by the gruesome scenes of park rangers becoming easy meals, or the film’s iconic theme tune might resonate in your head as you envision herds of long-necked beasts parading across the land. With great species diversity, the thrill of this dinosaur park cannot be denied. But can … Read more

PREHISTORY: The Million-Year Rain

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rain - pixabay

Long ago, before the dawn of the age of dinosaurs, a heavy rain descended upon the supercontinent of Pangaea — and it kept raining for more than 1 million years. This epic rainy spell — known now as the Carnian Pluvial Episode (CPE) — occurred roughly 233 million years ago and was a stark shift from the typically arid conditions of the late Triassic period. But stormy skies weren’t the only change Earth was facing. According to a study published Sept. 16 in the journal Science Advances, new fossil evidence suggests that the CPE was in fact a major extinction … Read more

SCIENCE: Meteor That Killed the Dinosaurs Hit Planet at Worst Possible Angle

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Asteroid - pixabay

The flaming space rock that slammed into Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, struck at the worst possible angle (for the dinosaurs, that is), new research suggests. Colliding with an enormous, fast-moving cosmic projectile would have been disastrous under just about any circumstances. But this giant space rock also hit the planet at a steep angle, causing the “deadliest possible” outcome by releasing much more gas and pulverized rock than it would have with a shallower approach, researchers recently discovered. Scientists modeled the path of the meteor as it hurtled toward Earth, creating the first 3D simulations to trace the … Read more

Technology: Dino Chickens

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Dinosaur Chicken

A few years ago Bhart-Anjan Bhullar, then a Ph.D. student in Arhat Abzhanov’s lab at Harvard, did something pretty incredible: He took an embryonic chicken and inhibited a couple of genes during its development. It was a tiny adjustment that produced a pretty amazing result: “Those chickens that were altered in that way, they grew up to have a snout that looked like a dinosaur snout,” he tells Inverse. Bhullar’s research exists at the strange intersection of molecular biology and paleontology. When he’s not teaching at Yale, he’s investigating how major distinguishing features of animal groups came about — in … Read more