By Dylan McDonough
This month I visited the Grand Rapids Public Museum for the exhibit, Expedition Dinosaur. It had many hands-on activities. There were many animatronic dinosaurs to see. We could make them move by pushing the interactive buttons. There was a giant Operation-type game with a dinosaur as the “patient”. In this game, we had to remove his bones carefully. We saw the tents that the archeologists and paleontologists lived in at fossil sites. I got to move dinosaur eggs with a robotic claw, trying not to drop it.
Some of you have probably read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton or seen one of the many movies. In this story, scientists find a mosquito trapped in amber. The mosquito was filled with blood from a dinosaur. They used that DNA to create live dinosaurs. Can you really make a dinosaur from DNA trapped in amber? This question was finally answered from this exhibit. The problem with that idea is that amber is highly porous on a molecular level. This would allow gasses to travel in and out freely. Any DNA that once existed within it would be completely destroyed as a result. So, getting actual Jurassic DNA from amber turns out to not be possible in the non-movie world. I have always found dinosaurs very interesting. This exhibit can be enjoyed by people of all ages. I highly recommend it to you.
