Day: October 15, 2012

Jurassic Park Unlikely

Jurassic Park (film)
Won’t happen.

It would seem that we won’t be able to visit Jurassic Park any time soon. According to this article in the Telegraph, resurrecting dinosaurs is probably impossible.

A study by Western Australia‘s Murdoch University concluded that DNA cannot survive more than 6.8 million years – a finding that effectively rules out the tantalising prospect of replicating dinosaurs. Most dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago.

“We’ve been permanently plagued by this Jurassic Park myth that’s been kicking around since the early nineties,” lead researcher Mike Bunce told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“The myth is still out there. Even other scientists ask whether it is possible.”

Scientists have long sought to examine whether dinosaur DNA may have survived – a prospect envisaged by the Michael Crichton bestseller and Stephen Spielberg film. Several papers claiming that 135 million-year-old insect DNA had been extracted from amber were later debunked after it was found the remains had been contaminated with human genetic material.

The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, was based on carbon-dating bones from the moa, an extinct New Zealand bird. The researchers found that the DNA from the bones halved after about 521 years when stored at 13.1 degrees. At minus five degrees, the final fragments of DNA in a bone would disappear after 6.8 million years.

Well, that is disappointing. If it is extremely unlikely that they can clone dinosaurs, then it is absolutely impossible that they could ever bring back my favorite prehistoric creatures, trilobites.

I guess I won’t be getting any of these for my aquarium.

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Romney, Ryan and Republicans are Racist!

I was going for a bit of alliteration there. Anyway that is the conclusion one must draw from this really offensive shirt at a Romney/Ryan event, as reported by Buzzfeed.

The Getty Images photo was taken at a Romney/Ryan campaign event in Lancaster, Ohio on Friday. A Romney spokesperson commented that the shirt was “reprehensible and has no place in this election.”

Of course, it is just barely possible that this man was a plant to make the Romney Campaign look like racists. Would the Democrats do something like that. Well, consider Mary Frances Berry‘s response on the question of whether branding the Tea Party as racist is effective.

Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness.

I am not certain whether Ms. Berry approves if this strategy or not, but she believes it to be effective. Other Democrats with fewer qualms about this sort of thing would have no problem sending a man with this shirt in. On the other hand, every movement, party and candidate attracts their share of idiots, crazies and losers. I think he is a plant, though. It is odd how many Liberals have jumped on this lone example as proof of Conservative racism.

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