Jurassic Park

Each month, I pick a question from a current or former toddler and answer it on BoingBoing. If a toddler you know (or once were) has a pressing science-related concern, email me! Anyone who's watched "Jurassic Park" (and, subsequently, thought up a velociraptor escape plan) knows there were meat-eating dinosaurs. Anyone who's had to talk a child (or themselves) down from a post-"Jurassic Park" nightmare knows that most dinosaurs ate plants...  

Are you ready to be blown away?On '60 Minutes' | Today 5:35 pm This week on "60 Minutes," I meet with one of the world’s most prominent – and controversial – paleontologists, Jack Horner, who was the inspiration for the main character in the movie "Jurassic Park." He has discovered a trove of dinosaur skeletons in Montana, and has uncovered a few other breakthroughs as well. Horner’s practice of breaking the bones apart and studying their...  

guardian.co.ukFree State find shows how dinosaurs became ploddersBusiness DayCAPE TOWN — Scientists have discovered a new dinosaur species in SA that offers fresh insight into how these ancient creatures evolved from nimble ...Dinosaurs lived in lush oasisIndependent OnlineIn Pictures: 'South Africa New Dinosaur Species'Monsters and Critics.comNew Aardonyx celestae dinosaur discovered in South AfricaTelegraph.co.ukJoburg -Los Angeles Times...  

No one wants to see more rampaging dinosaurs in Joe Johnston's Jurassic sequel ... unless those dinosaurs have gunsJurassic Park IV is the climate change of the movie world. It's been talked about for years but nobody has really paid any attention to it, partly because it won't happen for a long time and partly because the reality of it is too horrific to even contemplate. But, like climate change, it seems as if Jurassic Park IV is finally...  

Researchers have discovered a fossil skeleton that appears to link the earliest dinosaurs with the large plant-eating sauropods. This could help to bridge an evolutionary gap between the two-legged common ancestors of dinosaurs and the four-legged  

Two Tribes and Chilligo are just putting the finishing touches to the game “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”, and it appears to have some pretty gorgeous visuals. The game will be available to download from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s App Store in November 2009, packing a good set of features too: Alternative storyline focusing on Scrat’s [...]  

I typically end up missing out on most kid films during their theatrical runs (there just isn't enough time to catch all the G-Forces of the world), but I recently caught up with the money-making monster that is Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs from the comfort of my own couch. Between watching baby dinosaurs swallow other baby Ice Age critters and thinking about winter's approach, my mind soon drifted towards some of my favorite ice-set...  

The scenario above is not the figment of some scriptwriter’s imagination. Instead, it is the essence of a theory put forward by Sankar Chatterjee, a professor at Texas Tech University, to explain why dinosaurs became extinct almost 65 million years ago. Chatterjee’s hypothesis is that the crater, named Shiva, fast forwarded the extinction of dinosaurs.  

Since the dawn of time, man has had an insatiable instinct to shoot dinosaurs in the face with high-powered weaponry. Sadly, our forefathers could not curtail their joyous expeditions and blasted these majestic beasts straight into extinction. Thankfully, modern men can simulate the thrill of the hunt by killing virtual dinos. Will Jurassic: The Hunted quench our carnal needs of slaughtering oversized lizards or does it somehow kill the...  

That was until I saw the new xkcd comic that charts character grouping throughout some of the most epic movies. I wasted my morning looking at this damn thing and you probably will too. Don't blame me though. I warned you. ...  

Most scientists have believed for years that the extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by a meteorite strike off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The Chicxulub Crater is evidence that a meteor struck just off the coast, but Princeton University scientists recently refuted the theory that this meteor was responsible for the demise of dinosaurs because it struck 300,000 years before dinosaur extinction.  

So it has occurred to scientists that “Dracorex hogwartsia” may be as fictional as a Blast-Ended Skrewt. These dinosaurs were not separate species, as some paleontologists claim, but different growth stages of previously named dinosaurs, according to a new study. The confusion is traced to their bizarre head ornaments, ranging from shields and domes to horns [...]  

CLEMSON, S.C. - Algae could have had a lot to do with the extinction of dinosaurs and other species, two Clemson University scientists report. And that could bode ill for present species if the Earth's temperatures are rising, as many scientists have reported. | read more  

Paleontologists Mark Goodwin and Jack Horner have dug for 11 years in Montana's Hell Creek Formation in search of every dinosaur fossil they can find, accumulating specimens of all stages of development. Their new report on the growth stages of dome-headed dinosaurs shows that two named species are really just young pachycephalosaurs. They say that perhaps one-third of all named dinosaurs may not be separate species, but juvenile or subadult...  

If you are thinking of taking pre-schoolers to see this IMAX movie, be aware, according to a couple of five-year-olds I spoke to, there are just not enough of those CGI dinos leaping out of the screen! Narrated by Michael Douglas, (who does not quite ...