What did we learn about messing with nature?

[Trekker4747]

I learned that, convieniently, the prehistroic mosquitos were nice enough to sample the blood of the "more popular" dinosaurs and then let themselves be trapped in amber.

I also learned that a slowly moving turntable for the theater needs the lap-bars but cars driving around a park filled with dangerous, multi-ton, sometimes carnivorous animals don't need locks.

I also learned that despite being without power for 12 hours walk-in freezers still have ice and, er.. "cold fog vapor" in them.

Oh, and inGen uses computers designed for eunuchs.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Also, it's important to breed really really dangerous dinosaurs for your park. Then once you have them, put them in an enclosure so safe that you can't actually see into it. Because people will totally buy 'no really, that's the sound of a velociraptor. I know you can't see them, but they're just so dangerous you'll just have to take my word for it that they're in there.'

And to keep them in use use thin electrified wires, instead of thick steel bars, because everyone knows electricity is just as reliable as bars....

Anyone else notice that the electric cars that supposedly run off that track thing didn't seem to have any connection to the track? 

Here's your battery powered cars....  What, how are they supposed to get stranded when the power goes out?  Oh, sorry, we'll just put this track in the road and hope no one notices....

[Redclaire]

Did they ever mention in the film how they brought back all the extinct plants? I realise it isn't as exciting as the dinosaurs, but if they did mention it I didn't notice. You'd think a paleobotanist would be interested wouldn't you?

[Bob]

Did they ever mention in the film how they brought back all the extinct plants? I realise it isn't as exciting as the dinosaurs, but if they did mention it I didn't notice. You'd think a paleobotanist would be interested wouldn't you?

Well, the mosquitos also sucked the sap from the trees and they used tree frog DNA to fill in the holes and....... oh, wait.    I think they just kind of forgot about that.

[RVR II]

Well, the mosquitos also sucked the sap from the trees and they used tree frog DNA to fill in the holes and....... oh, wait.    I think they just kind of forgot about that.

Man! Those were some Vicious Mosquitoes suckin Tree Sap back in those days..

[Junkyard]

I noticed that "where'd the plants come from" thing the first time I watched it, back when I was 9. I've always thought it was an irredeemable flaw in the film.

[Chaos]

I don't think Crichton ever mentioned it. I guess he figured people would be more interested in the dinosaurs than the plants.

[Darth Geek]

I noticed that "where'd the plants come from" thing the first time I watched it, back when I was 9. I've always thought it was an irredeemable flaw in the film.

I noticed that, too. I was hoping for a riff about it.

The thing I noticed when I first watched it, and has irritated me ever since, is how bad of a decision to make all of the dinosaurs FEMALE. Then all you need is one mistake, and he impregnates all the rest of the females of his species. Rather than making them all males, and then one mistake results in only one pregnant dinosaur.

[Chaos]

There was something about that in the book, I think. Or maybe I dreamed about this when I read the book and later remembered it as part of the actual book...

They decided to make them all female because of the whole "all eggs start off female thing," it's easier to leave them all that way than to turn them all into males, and they figured that males are more aggressive than females, so better to have them all females than all males. Ian made some kind of comment about this, because of course as we all know, in nature the female is often even more territorial, aggressive, and dominant than the males.

[AmandaGal]

I swear they mentioned it in the books, how the plants came back.  I could be wrong though.  Plants get caught in amber too.

As for the female thing, there's no way to "make a mistake" if you're cloning.  You're not going to accidentally bake up a Y chromosome and toss it in there.  With reptiles though, it's not as clear cut as with mammals as to what is "male" and what is "female." 

But, according to the way Crichton explained it, if it really as clear cut as XY=male, XX=female, It would actually be much easier to mess up if you were making males, because you'd be "adding" something to the recipe so to speak.  Commonly, the frogs that change sex are actually some variant of  XY and they can turn that Y gene off and on depending on environmental pressures but they've found frogs with male sex characteristics who were XX too.

There are some reptiles that actually do clone themselves (it's more common in insects) and all the clones are female.  They never screw up   It's called parthenogenesis. They're typically just X if they were born from cloning.  If they are born from a male, they're XY.  Of course, that's oversimplified.  There's more than just the X & the Y that go into it.

[Junkyard]

Yeah, I saw a thing on that- These little lizards, each one a clone of the other, giving birth to clones.
Evolution just hasn't given them any obstacles that they themselves couldn't overcome as they are.
If one tries to stand out, by getting a piercing or a new hairstyle, they ritualistically kill it.
When threatened, they form themselves into a giant Mega Lizard, where they can, by combining their life force, form a light sword that can cut through steel.

Quiz time: at what point did the pain killers kick in?

[GroovyDave]

I learned that mathematicians are truly the rockstars of our era. Just take a look at the father of the Strange Attractor theory, Edward Lorenz:

[AmandaGal]

There is one problem to lesbian living, once you get about 10 generation of clones in, the offspring start to experience large die off and for the ones who do survive, fecundity (basically, number of eggs laid) decreases drastically.   That's with animals that do have males (like some insects, they'll mate with a boy if one is one is around otherwise they'll just have babies on their own).  It's believed to be due to lack of genetic diversity.  I hear that is a problem in the South too.

I used to be caretaker to a big group of parthenogenic insects and they experienced die off.  We traded papers and email for a long time to figure out what was going on, even though everyone kept saying, "You know it's got to the be genetic defects."  We finally found some concrete studies.

Interestingly, the lizards are truly assexual.  They've done some studies in zoos where they had them in isolation, and after so many generations, the same thing happens that happens with the insects.  However, when they study them in groups, the girls mate with and court each other (sounds like lizard porn) and somehow, that makes the offspring stronger and makes the female lay a greater number of them.  They think it's perhaps more hormonal than genetic.

Moral of the story: It's better to just eliminate men all together than to prefer chicks to men   Only kidding.

[RVR II]

Moral of the story: It's better to just eliminate men all together than to prefer chicks to men

Boo! Hiss!
I don't think I like this moral..

[FBX]

Maybe they get the DNA from fossils (via some immaculate means)? Thats what you do in Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis... Would explain bringing plants back as well as why Hammond was funding a Grant's dig.