Buttercup
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Post by Buttercup on Mar 8, 2006 17:31:00 GMT -5
I am starting The Lost World by Michael Crichton this evening and anticipate being done with it very soon. If anyone else would care to dust off their copies or go and borrow one, then come back in a day or two and discuss with me I would be eternally greatful. If not, i'll just enjoy the story all by myself! ;D Happy Reading!
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Barry
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Post by Barry on Mar 8, 2006 17:45:11 GMT -5
Oh, it's been 4 years since I listened to that book. I went to the library and had the audio book version. I may have to re read it. I also have the movie too. ;D
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Buttercup
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Post by Buttercup on Mar 9, 2006 18:07:04 GMT -5
I'm cheating and using the audio version from the library as well. ;D
I am about halfway through it and already imagining the discussions that can come about because of it. I still love the debate that Crichton presents with the concept that T-Rex can't see you if you don't move. That is teh section that I am at right now, where they have just brought back the baby to the trailer and are preparing a cast. I'll have to pay close attention so taht I can bring it up when we are done! Enjoy!
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Barry
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Post by Barry on Mar 9, 2006 18:21:46 GMT -5
The audio version isn't cheating. It just makes it easier to understand. Remember the time when we were all in 1st grade. The teacher read them for ya, and ya could understand it. Plus you don't have to worry about producing the words wrong or even trying to pronounce some of those names. ;D I use the audio format all the time because of my disability.
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Buttercup
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Post by Buttercup on Mar 10, 2006 9:33:09 GMT -5
Well, i was awake last night so I went ahead and finished listening to the book and decided that a debate topic should be opened under the Science forum...follow me there for a debate about the chameleon dinosaurs! Anyway, I want to open a debate as to the identity and origin of the 2 chameleon Dinosaurs that are mentioned in 'The Lost World" by Michael Crichton. The character Dr. Richard Lavigne saw them near the end of the book when what was left of the cast was trapped in a little store at nightfall. The only description of the dinosaurs that is given is that they were 7 feet tall, pale with stripes that would fade away or darken up depending on the amount of light that was applied over there skin. They didn't appear to like the light that the characters used from handheld flashlights across their skin. There appeared to be a period of adjustment that they couldn't quickly compensate for and this confused them and drove them off. Dr. Lavigne hypothesized that they were similar to something that sounded like "carnetora sastree". ( I listened to the audio version and so do not know how to spell it.) Anyhow, he stated that whatever that was, was from Patagonia. I have no idea what that is except to assume a reptile/lizard of some sort. Now, all of this leaves me with several questions...First is what in the world were they or were supposed to be...( I realize that it may be creative license in action here!) Then, I figure to actually explain them, there are one of three possibilities... 1) They were actually based on a dinosaur that I haven't heard of, (they seemed to be depicted as photosensitive as the storyline had thm abandoning that piece of territory during the daytime and they appeared to be pale (albinos?)...or... 2) Could they have been a result of direct mutation by the INGEN corporation that they abandoned due to side effects that they didn't like or couldn't control...or... 3) Were they an accidental side effect of the use of modern reptilian DNA (from Patagonia?) to fill in the DNA sequence gaps as explained in the process in JP? All in all, I found it very frustrating that Mr. Crichton was so vague and ambiguous about them. I have no idea if they were based on real evidence and actual Dino's, or if it was creative and artistic license taken a little out there. Any ideas and opinions are welcome!
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Post by Vorchia on Mar 11, 2006 2:01:30 GMT -5
The discussion being about something entirely fictional in a science fiction novel means it belongs in the bookforum, in replies to the original thread about the book involved............ >_< We can't take the subject out of its fiction context. Trust me, chameleonic dilophosaurs the way Crichton describes them are a fantasy. Fantasy isn't to be discussed in the Science forum... The Science forum is for measurable science and serious theories. Any paleontologist can tell Dilophosaurs didn't have a frill (The JP movie), that chameleonism is never as extreme as in mr Crichton's Carnotaurus sastrei and that poisonous spit (JP the movie again) wouldn't look like the product of a major airway infection mixed with mud and that Velociraptors are very small (JP the movie)... These ideas were never meant to be taken seriously enough for a real science debate. I deleted the post in the science forum and added it contents to Buttercup's post directly above this one. 1) In my book it says Carnotaurus sastrei, which is a theropod found in Argentina. Google it and you'll see. 2)The strange characteristics of the animals as described is probably due to genetic engineering by Ingen, yes that was a plausible explanation there Buttercup. 3) There is no animal capable of chameleonism as described in these Carnotaurs. No matter what they filled the gap in the sequence with, there are no cells on earth they could have theoretically 'copy pasted' THAT from. The only explanation would be active gene engineering but it'd invole the creation of completely new genes for proteins and enzymes that do not exist yet but would have to work in complex cascade and feedback mechanisms. Science has advanced to the point of us being able to make proteins from laboratory made DNA, even proteins we didn't know yet. The problem however is that the folding of the proteïn and the folding of proteïn subunits to a bigger proteïn is still unpredictable. As a result we can't calculate out what a proteïn's precise shape will be and therefor we can't predict its effects... Even if we somehow evade THAT problem, we don't know how to make a cell THAT light sensitive AND change color to that extent. In short, its about as realistic as breathing fire. But I like the book!! I just happen to be doing molecular biology which makes my mind mercilessly analyse anything that reeks of it... It does ruin my fun with science fiction a bit... But aside from the necessary elements of imagination Crichton does do his homework and is known to be as scientifically accurate as is at all possible in his books. Oh yes, in JP the novel, Malcolm dies and gets a funeral, in TLW the novel he is alive again?!?! I love Malcom's attitude in the books though. (Movie Malcolm is ok too.) (typo edit!)
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Buttercup
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Post by Buttercup on Mar 11, 2006 8:48:17 GMT -5
First, I apologize for apparently posting incorrectly Vorchia, but as i have said before, i don't have any kind of knowledge on these subjects, just layman's understandings and guesses. that is why I posted about it in the first place. Question, you call the Dino's that Crichton depicted in TLW Dilophosaurs as were present in JP. Did you read something in the book that sated as such or are you assuming, because in the audio version, there was no reference whatsoever to the dilophosaurs and so that led me to believe that the Dino's in question were completely different. Of course, my audio could have been edited for time. Second, I don't think I will even try to pretend that i understand all of the protein stuff that you tried to explain. I assumed that there could be i the near future a kind of possibility of discovering chameleon ism in some Dino's because of the fact that we do have your basic garden variety pet store chameleons and anything else related to them. Now, is there type of chameleon ism totally different in reality from what Crichton depicted merely because of the difference in complexity between an even total color change and something more complicated like stripes and patterns? Is that what you meant in all that protein stuff? I thought that Malcolm actually survived in JP. It's been a while since I have read the book but I thought that it mentioned that he did survive, doped up on Morphine with a tourniquet and all. Maybe I am confusing the movie with the book or something. Sorry for posting wrong again but I thought that anything that in voled speaking of possible genetics would be OK in th science Forum. I have learned.
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kada
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Post by kada on Mar 12, 2006 11:25:46 GMT -5
In the movie (JP) wasn't Malcolm the guy that stole the vials of DNA and tried to escape with them? If so, he supposedly died in the movie by the little guys that spewed that acidic stuff. *sorry not that technical on specifics.*
*edite to add = We have a lot of the books, all of them I believe but I will check out the library near us to find the audio ones. Those would be cool to listen to in the car. Do they have all the series on audio?*
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Barry
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Post by Barry on Mar 12, 2006 16:15:39 GMT -5
No, that was Dennis Nedry Whom Steals The Embryos
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Buttercup
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Post by Buttercup on Mar 12, 2006 18:41:45 GMT -5
Malcom was the mathematician who happened to be a pessimist and was against teh park from the get go due to his beleifs in the chaos theory...(sorry, not familiar enough to detail the chaos theory ) but it pretty much reminded me of a blending of two golden rules in life...the strong survive and Murphy's Law that if it can go wrong, it will.
*As Vorchia pointed out, the acid spitters were Dilophosaurs.
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Post by Vorchia on Mar 13, 2006 5:05:48 GMT -5
Its ok, just I want my precious little Book Forum to have all the book related posts possible. I even took the liberty of pulling a post about books out of Miscellany into the Book forum and copying a book discussion of the OMB into the book forum. Mwahahahahahahahaha!!! Uhh I just realise a small problem. I am at school and my copy of TLW is at home! Oops! I remember the dilophosaurs were described as colorful (the males moreso then the females) and that they were poison spitters but as of right now I can't say for sure whether the Book Dilophosaurs had that frill thing or if it was just the movie. I will look it up. However that would be in 'Jurassic park' not 'The Lost world'. Nedry is quite dead and stays quite dead by the time TLW takes place. Ian Malcolm, our dear eccentric mathematician survives Jurassic park The Movie, however there are some serious differences between movie and book Malcolm! JP the novel Malcolm is older for instance and he gets attacked by a raptor resulting in bad injuries. He gets dosages of morphine to keep down the pain, it induces him to sing a Beatles song called 'Yesterday'. He doesn't survive and gets buried!!!!!!!! In the JP movie Malcolm never receives any injury grave enough to kill him and (unfortunately) doesn't hallucinate and sing. He also fails to die and thereby Spielberg evaded a MAJOR plot inconsistency and doesn't have to raise the dearly departed for the TLW movie. I like your explanation of the chaos theory Buttercup. The chaostheory just wants increasing chaos, something will go wrong and it will cause a cascade causing chaos (entropy) to increase exponentially. I won't go into the proteins again if it gives you a headache, I get carried away while ranting about science.
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Buttercup
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Post by Buttercup on Mar 13, 2006 10:07:05 GMT -5
Naw, don't feel bad....rant away about science because occasionally I am bound to pick out something that i can understand and thereby actually learn something new.
Oh, by the way, speaking of plot inconsistencies, Arby was never in the movie right? That through me for a loop at first and then I realized that the movie had also done a major change and made Kelly into Malcolm's daughter. I much preferred the book version as far as Kelly and Arby's involvement because each of them had their own 5 minutes of fame where they, and only they could save the day so to speak. Arby did it with his prowess with computers when he first accessed the computer system and obtained the visual feed from the still active cameras on the INGEN network and saved the team right at the beginning from the T-Rex (when the team did not even know that they were their yet).
Kelly's moment of fame came when she was trying to access the computers to find a map that would allow the team to pinpoint the location of the boathouse and the raptors started to break in to the store where they were hiding. All at once she realized that none of that mattered and realized that here had to be some kind of service tunnel that they could use to escape without having to run into the raptors.
I love novels where there are several main characters but the author allows some of the minor characters (such as usually defenseless [sarcasm] women and children) to get their chance to show the world that they can contribute in the most unlikely of situations. Twists like that add a sense of realism to my way of thinking. it is believable because everybody can think of a situation where an adult froze and the child acted in their best interests.
Anyway, that is just my take on the book for now. Who else has been reading it?
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aric
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Post by aric on Apr 14, 2006 3:51:03 GMT -5
I assumed that there could be i the near future a kind of possibility of discovering chameleon ism in some Dino's because of the fact that we do have your basic garden variety pet store chameleons and anything else related to them. Now, is there type of chameleon ism totally different in reality from what Crichton depicted merely because of the difference in complexity between an even total color change and something more complicated like stripes and patterns? Is that what you meant in all that protein stuff? The only kind of active camouflage I know of in real life that's even remotely similar to what's described in the book is done by both the octopus and cuttle fish. I remember the dilophosaurs were described as colorful (the males moreso then the females) and that they were poison spitters but as of right now I can't say for sure whether the Book Dilophosaurs had that frill thing or if it was just the movie. I will look it up. The dilophosaurs didn't have frills in the book. - Aric
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Post by Quickstride on Apr 14, 2006 22:40:11 GMT -5
I think the thing to remember is that while we can compare dinosaurs to living animals and their adaptations, because we can't really compare them to anything else, the thousands of species of dinosaur were all unique organisms and, just like some modern animals, many probably had unique characteristics, including some that may not have a contemporary example (our current fauna represents a mere snapshot in the long history of life, anyway.) I see no particular reason why carnotaurs would need "super chameleon" powers, but it's possible that some species of dinosaur somewhere took disguising itself to such an extreme- we can't know, because no evidence of that would fossilize. That was part of Critchton's point with the JP books- resurrecting dinos is a bad idea because in the end we know much less about them than we sometimes think we do. The super-chameleon was a bit extreme, but I actually rather like it when authors/artists give dinosaurs things like venom or dermal structures that don't fossilize- it gives them more the feel of real animals than of museum skeletons covered with a bare minimum of flesh. As far as sci-fi is concerned, I think the latter is actually less scientific for just that reason. (On the subject of poisonous dinos, there is one unequivocally poisonous dinosaur known to science- the hooded pitohui is a bird that secretes toxins onto its feathers! Here's a link: nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/2001/2/intoxnewguineabirds.cfmSometimes we underestimate even the dinosaurs living alongside us!)
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Stouthorn
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Post by Stouthorn on Apr 16, 2006 6:10:39 GMT -5
I'm with Quickstride on this one: one of the overarching themes of The Lost World was that we know nothing about dinosaurs, so bringing them back to life is a dangerous proposition. The first book touches on this with the dilophosaurus: one of them repeatedly injures InGen employees until it can be subdued and its toxin glands surgically removed. I recall an incident in the book where the two T-Rex parents engage in some odd behavior and the characters remark that while this behavior seems to be connected to their search, they can't quite pin it down. The raptors begin to behave erattically, only show shadows of the social organization they appear to be capable of, and are subject to a mad-cow like disease.
The book suggests that even though dinosaurs existed unfathomably long ago, the fact that they ruled the world for 120 million years seems to indicate that their antiquity does not connote a lower level of advancement and specialization. In fact, since dinosaurs persisted longer than many surviving species and a cladistic groups, its possible that they were even more advanced. The carnotaurus displays an ability to mimic its surroundings even more advanced than that of an octopus. While it's not clear why a carnotaurus would need to camoflauge to this extent, it certainly is not entirely implausible.
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