Sometime during the last few years or so the world got downright terrifying. Wars, plagues, fires, floods, hurricanes... Though I'm not sure whether this is a matter of perception (these things have been around for years, after all) or if things really are getting worse.

But ammo for the "it is worse" theory lies in the knowledge that there are many terrible things that haven't been here all along. All sorts of fun, new kill-capable options that I've written about here on SG. Human animal hybrids, clones, aliens, sentient robots, etc. Now comes easily the most terrifying thing of all.

Deep inside the dusty university store room, three scientists struggle to lift a huge fossilised bone. It is from the leg of a dinosaur. For many years, this chunky specimen has languished cryptically on a shelf. Interesting but useless _ a forgotten relic of a lost age.

In the movie version of this moment one of the scientists, the bumbling one, will slip and nearly drop his end of the fossil, then the other two will shoot him a death glare. Then the bumbling guy will shrug.

...they believe that this single fragment of a beast which stalked the earth untold millions of years ago could hold the key which will unlock the secrets of the dinosaurs.

Extraordinarily, they contend that it could lead to a real life Jurassic Park, where dinosaurs are once again unleashed on the world by scientists.

How could this possibly end any way but awful? Well, I guess it could end "uneventfully," if they fail. But for that to be the case they'd have to stop there and all agree not to continue. I doubt that will happen. You don't suddenly decide to stop trying to make dinosaurs just 'cause you failed once. These guys sound driven. Especially now that they've gone public with it, there's even more pressure to succeed.

Nobody wants to be the guy who claimed he was gonna make a dinosaur, only to be spotted a few years later working on a new kind of bio-degradable plastic bag. Sure, that's a noble cause and all and the people you run into on the street will politely listen to how it's going, but all the while they'll be thinking, "What an asshole. What the fuck happened to that dinosaur he was gonna grow!? I even got him one of those capsule-sponge-dinos as a gag gift, and he just quits? I want that sponge-dino back! And it better still be tiny and dry!"

Better to just keep working on it. That way you can say, "It's going great! But these things take time. Um, gimme a few more months."

It poses the question: will scientists ever be able to resurrect the dinosaur?

According to Jack Horner, professor of palaeontology at Montana State University, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

He says: 'Of course we can bring them back to life. Their ancestral DNA is still present.

'The science is there. I don't think there are any barriers, other than the philosophical.'

Speaking of "barriers," how about the fact that we don't have any that can stop a dinosaur? Has that come up at all? If not, CAN IT COME UP PLEASE? Can we make solid steel walls six-feet thick and fifty-feet high? Maybe? Maybe we've been saving the tech on that for just such an occasion. But I'm thinking real hard about walls I've seen in my life (bedroom, brick, Great Chinese, psychological) and none of them look dino-proof.

Yeah, I could easily see a team of brontosauruses leaning on the Great Wall of China until it collapsed, possibly helped by stegosauruses hitting it with their spiky tails. Why isn't the T-Rex helping them, you ask? Oh, he's busy eating families of humans.

Raul Cano, professor of microbiology at California Polytechnic State University, made the first attempt to extract DNA from insects almost as old as the dinosaurs that had been embedded in amber, a sticky tree sap which hardens into transparent orange stone.

Speculation about this possibility inspired the Jurassic Park story, in which an amber-trapped mosquito which sucked dinosaur blood unleashes its victims' genetic code, allowing an obsessed billionaire to clone the species _ with terrifying consequences.

In his real-life laboratory, Cano cracked the amber open with freezing cold liquid nitrogen, obtaining a sample of the insect inside.

Amazingly, he soon had a DNA sample from a 40 million-year-old bee.

Hey, this is starting just like that movie they mentioned... Maybe it will end that way too!

Now, I highly recommend clicking the article, but for those of you too lazy, here are some excerpts that very quickly paint the picture for you. A picture of an impending blood spattered dino-attack. Painted on human flesh.

Horner, who acted as an advisor on the Jurassic Park films, made a remarkable discovery while his team were excavating a 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in Montana...

... The magnitude of the discovery was immediately apparent to the Montana University team _ the material appeared to be well preserved flesh from a Tyrannosaurus Rex...

... It is generally accepted by palaeontologists that birds are descended from a class of theropod dinosaurs called raptors. If we want to see a dinosaur in our lifetime, we need to start with a bird and work backwards,' says Horner.

... But they have always carried it deep inside their embryology.'So, the blueprint for a dinosaur remained locked inside the modern-day bird.

... Manipulating the genetic make-up, he was able to extend the tail by a further three vertebrae. Larsson had pinpointed a method for turning on dormant dinosaur genes.

... Could they really be teeth? Peeling away the beak in this tiny, mutant bird, the academics revealed sabreshaped formations almost identical to embryonic alligator teeth.

... Next, Harris and Fallon attempted to trigger the formation of teeth in a normal chicken, by injecting the embryo with a virus designed to 'turn on' the relevant gene. It was a long shot.

... Examining the growing embryo two weeks later, he called colleagues to look at what had happened. 'You could see very clearly paired structures on the lower jaw.

... With further research, he believes scientists should be able to transform a bird's wing back into a dinosaur arm.

... Larsson now believes that in a hundred years or so, geneticists could retro-engineer animals that appear identical to Mesozoic dinosaurs. 'I think that kind of scenario is quite possible. Maybe sooner than we think.' Fallon agrees, saying: 'As we learn more, we'll be able to do it.

Holy shit!

I have an idea -- since we're all so into creating dinosaurs, why not get equally savvy scientists started on making something that kills dinosaurs, juuust in case? Or installing a kill switch or password shutdown into them, like they put in all those killer robots.

I'm just saying, at the very least, we should start building underground chambers to live in. Or wearing clothes made of rock. Something!

Sure, I hear what you're saying, we have brains and opposable thumbs and wonderful technology, we'll be fine. Sounds good until you remember that we have those things now and yet ANIMALS KILL PEOPLE ALL THE TIME. Animals much smaller than dinosaurs. Tiny fish with tiny teeth. Wolves do it. Even bees don't have much trouble lowering the boom on good ole mankind. Dinosaurs are like bees, only a million times bigger and slightly less color-coordinated...

Missiles and bombs? Wake up, man! All of those things kill people, too. Do we expect to lead them all pied-piper style into a pit somewhere?

Train other animals to fight them? No way, they've been waiting for just such an occasion to throw off the shackles we've placed on them. No gorilla or lion is gonna stick its neck out for a man.

Maybe a dolphin would, but unless we can teach 'em to shoot guns or unless the dinosaurs are allergic to adorableness, we're in trouble. Besides, they'll have their flippers full with all the new dino-fish hunting them down and silencing their creepy garbled water-bleats for all eternity.

We're doomed. And we're already getting sloppy.

For his part, Horner imagines creating the first example.

'I have to admit that I've certainly imagined walking up on a stage to give a talk, and having a little dino chicken walk up behind me,' he says.

'That would be kind of cool.

Kind of cool? Yes, cool. Just like that last monster that was paraded onstage -- a fifty foot tall monkey I recall -- and hit with all those flashbulbs. That worked out wonderfully! You fool!!

'There is now nothing to stop us bringing back dinosaurs but ourselves.

'People who don't believe it don't know much about evolution.'

Oh, I believe it, Horner... I believe it all too well.

TheCoolerKing believes that our only hope, as usual, lies with finding and awakening Godzilla, and praying he'll fight our battle for us.

DucksAreCrazy

Lexington, KY

December 2006

JUN 15, 2008 07:11 AM

I'm willing to bet guns trump dinosaurs, or if that's too small we've got tanks.

Oz_the_Vamp

Lorain, OH

June 2005

JUN 15, 2008 08:22 AM

Meh. How is this news? Jack Horner has been saying the same things for the last 15 years. I met him in college and heard all this stuff then. Nothing new.

ohdang

Ann Arbor, MI

April 2006

JUN 15, 2008 08:51 AM

Maybe we can teach them to open up a polygamist colony and that way we'd never have to see them. Except when Papa T-Rex gets busted for trying to bone his little stegosaurus.

Pandasloth

Amesbury, MA

September 2004

JUN 15, 2008 09:05 AM

Even if we do clone a dinosaur, it's one dinosaur. Human civilization trumps one dinosaur. Still, things are rapidly changing, technology evolving at "Moores" pace, and will continue to do so. Genetic manipulation of the human genome in virus form, now that's scary!

ninetysevencents

Rochester, NY

August 2003

JUN 15, 2008 09:21 AM

Yeah, I think you forgot to mention the part where Horner is a little nuts.

This si the same guy who, despite evidence in the rock bed across the world and a giant fucking crater, thinks a meteorite didn't do in the dinosaurs.

He's also the same guy who was (is) a big proponent of the "T Rex was a scavenger" theory...as if there's some evolutionary scavenging advantage to being enormous and having a mouthful of six inch long teeth. Seems like more of a top predator kind of role, guy.

tadkil

Atlanta, GA

September 2004

JUN 15, 2008 09:32 AM

Looks down at opposable thumbs. Thinks of arsenal of firearms in gun cabinet.

Ummm, but wouldn't brontosaurus steak kick ass?!?!?!

Cassiel

Aurora, CO

September 2004

JUN 15, 2008 09:51 AM

anyone ever see Carnosaur?

PointBlank

New York, NY

November 2004

JUN 15, 2008 09:58 AM

Shit.

I've seen the movie, and I know what happens. It's not pretty.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

defaultx

I'm lost

February 2006

JUN 15, 2008 10:53 AM

pro dinosaur

Dude think if we could scale them down and make pets out of them . I would rather own a mini T-Rex then a pit bull!

d_day

San Bernardino, CA

July 2002

JUN 15, 2008 11:01 AM

PointBlank said:
Shit.

I've seen the movie, and I know what happens. It's not pretty.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

*slow clap*

gingerbread

Portland, OR

January 2008

JUN 15, 2008 11:40 AM

well, it shouldn't be a big deal, because the only people who get killed are newman from seinfeld, creepy old guy, some random 3rd world park employees--like, pretty much no one important. sometimes it's even funny/just deserts/boring!