Colossal Fossils

A weekend or two ago I headed down to the Pacific Science Center to see the end of their "Colossal Fossils" exhibit. I hadn't seen any dinos for a while so this was pretty cool. First we got lost and found some older animatronic dinos, but I was there to see the real thing. The real dead things. Eventually we found our way around and found the COLOSSAL FOSSILS...all 10 of them. It was still pretty cool. I felt rather kid-like again. The nicest surprise was that they had a few really cool dinos. What made them cool you ask? They were unearthed in present day Argentina and are some of the biggest dinosaurs ever uncovered. The first we saw was the aptly named Argentinosaurus. This is a sauropod (think long neck) and is one of the biggest animals to walk on the earth. An entire skeleton has never been found just vertebrae like this one pictured here, and other pieces.

That is almost as tall as me (well about 2/3's) and it is just one piece of the Argentinosaurus' back. Thats pretty cool. Next we were immediately treated to what was likely chasing the Argentinosaurus all over the place; the Giganotosaurus (that means really giant lizard), another Argentina native. This is like a T. Rex, but a little bit bigger (about a meter longer). Here is a Giganotosaurus skull (with a duckbill dino in the background).

It was pretty cool to look this one over. Thats an enormous skull. I think I would pick this one to be the one that I rode around on if I was some sort of dino gaucho. There were some other dinos there, but they weren't from Argentina. There was also an exhibit all about dino eggs that was kind of neat. All in all the visit reminded me that perhaps the greatest thing I could ever hope to do with my genetics degree is help an eccentric, rich man who dreams of building a futuristic amusement park where dinosaurs are brought to life through advanced cloning techniques. I believe that I am not alone when I say that is the dream or gold standard of modern genetics.

On a related note to the actual science I work on. We wondered into the Pacific Science Center's Molecular Biology section and found this nifty ball game about Selective Breeding.

You pick traits you want for your dog and it moves or opens up paths for a ball to fall through helping you select a dog breed that is right for you. Thats practically my thesis right there. Word for word. Game form and everything. Just great. Somebody beat me to it. I don't know, maybe I can put lights on mine or make it so it barks too or something.