At the fourth installment of BBC Radio 4's Jurassic Park series, paleontologist Dr. Jack Horner of Montana State University admitted that the upcoming Jurassic World was "scientifically more plausible" than its predecessors.
"It's not real life!" protested presenter Justin Webb.
For context: in Jurassic World, starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Irrfan Khan, the dinosaurs that populate the titular theme park are actually transgenic animals (i.e., animal hybrids), due to the fact that there apparently isn't enough dinosaur DNA to go around.
In reality, dinosaur DNA is nonexistent, but transgenesis actually works.
Essentially, the hypothetical scientific protocol of building dinosaurs from scratch involves transferring an exogenous (a gene that originates from outside of an organism) into a living foreign organism. After this takes place, new properties can be disseminated to its offspring.
"The cool thing about making a hybrid is that we can take a whole bunch of genes from other animals and mix them together to make a new animal, which is actually more plausible than bringing them back," said Horner.
Or, in this case, creating some angry, rampaging hybrid-o-saurs from a lab who want to get the hell out of dodge (or, according to the setting of the fourth Jurassic Park movie, Isla Nublar).
Horner has served as a technical adviser for each entry into the Jurassic Park franchise, and also served as the inspiration for the character of Dr. Alan Grant. Jurassic World opens June 12.
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