Right now if you asked the National Science Foundation how much they thought they were going to be funding in paleontology over the next 30 years, they’d probably say zero, because they’re not very much into historical science. Historical science is being left in the dust. But paleontology isn’t a purely historical science, or at least it won’t be for much longer, because soon we may have the capability of resurrecting extinct life-forms. If we want to see an animal like a velociraptor [a small carnivorous dinosaur], we will be able to create one by genetic engineering. It won’t be a genuine one from the past, but it could be a reasonable simulation. It might even be possible to make something that looks like a T. rex, once we understand what all the genes do and how to turn them on and how to turn them off.
Read the entire interview here: Dinosaurs Might Soon Walk out of the Museum and Into the Lab. Of course, I've got my own reasons for cheering on the development of test-tube dinosaurs...
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