A little over 20 years ago, Steven Spielberg made cinema history bringing his epic ‘Jurassic Park’ to the big screen. It is hard to believe it was 1993 when this movie was released – the computer generated imagery has certainly stood the test of time; some feat, when one compares present day computing with what was available back then.

Graphics aside, this film captivated audiences for two reasons. Firstly, it reawakened our interest in dinosaurs, giving us an amazingly lifelike representation of these fascinating, and seemingly mythological, creatures from earth’s physiological history. Secondly, to viewers with a scientific imagination, the concept seemed realistically conceivable. I was certainly one of those viewers! Ok, I was only eight years old, and my grasp of science was still in its infancy, but it looks like I was not too far off the mark:

Last week my attention was drawn to an article in The New York Times, written by Nathaniel Rich, entitled ‘The Mammoth Cometh’. This article is a wonderfully written account of advances in scientific research towards the ‘de-extinction’ of earth’s lost species. It brings to light the main insights from both sides of the ongoing debate surrounding this avenue of research, while also educating the layman on some of the key aspects of the science involved. While resurrection of a T. Rex may not be on the cards, who could argue that a woolly mammoth is not of similar taxonomical stature!

If you’re interested in researching this fascinating topic in greater depth, why not kick start your learning by adding the following articles to your colwiz Library, & reading them through colwiz’ interactive PDF reader:

 

What If Extinction Is Not Forever?

(Sherkow, J. S.; Greely, H. T. Science 2013340, 32-33)

 

A Paleogenomic Perspective on Evolution and Gene Function: New Insights from Ancient DNA

(Shapiro, B.; Hofreiter, M. Science2014343, DOI: 10.1126/science.1236573)

 

Protein Sequences from Mastodon and Tyrannosaurus Rex Revealed by Mass Spectrometry

(Asara, J. M. et alScience 2007316, 280-285)