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

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Summary: Explanations of the fundamental problems using Dino DNA
Review: "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.

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Summary: Informative, but tedious and repitious at times
Review: Good book, but the authors writing styles are somewhat 'horrible'! Very repititous in some parts. A decent buy...(I lost my copy, and I will be buying another one and reading it again...)

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Summary: If your a fan of Jurassic Park get this book, you'll love it
Review: 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!