De-extinction: Is "Jurassic Park" a real possibility?

(CBS News) Twenty years ago, "Jurassic Park" seemed like pure science fiction. Scientists in the movie retrieved ancient DNA from bones, and the movie fantasized dinosaurs could be brought back to Earth.

Not only is "Jurassic Park" back in theaters next month in 3D, but it turns out some of the science fiction might be about to become reality.

Huge deposit of Jurassic turtle remains found in China

Paleontologists from University of Tübingen and Berlin Natural History Mu-seum can make first statistical analysis of ancient species. 

"Bones upon bones, we couldn't believe our eyes," says Oliver Wings, paleontologist and guest researcher at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. He was describing the spectacular find of some 1800 fossilized mesa chelonia turtles from the Jurassic era in China's northwest province of Xinjiang. Wings and the University of Tübingen's fossil turtle specialist, Dr. Walter Joyce, were working with Chinese paleontologists there in 2008. The results of their further work in 2009 and 2011 have just been published in the German journal "Naturwissenschaften." 

Dinozaurul Cryolophosaurus – Soparla cu creasta descoperita in Antarctica

Dinozaurul Cryolophosaurus era un urias carnivor care impresiona prin creasta colorata de deasupra capului, aceasta se intindea de la varful botului pana la frunte. Ramasitele sale fosile au fost descoperite in Antarctica si constau in cateva fragmente care au ingreunat munca cercetatorilor in determinarea genului si speciei de reptila preistorica. In urma studiilor indelungate in anul 1994 paleontologii W. R. Hammer si W. J. Hickerson au clasat specia ca fiind unica, nefiind gasita in alta parte pe Glob si au numit-o Cryolophosaurus ellioti.

Rethinking the Triassic-Jurassic Mass Extinction

A new study casts doubt on a popular theory about the mass extinction that occurred in the transition between two geological periods, the Triassic and the Jurassic. The findings give us a better understanding of today’s climate changes, scientists claim.

About the time, 201 million years ago, that the super-continent Pangaea – the single land mass made up of all the present continents – started to break up, life on Earth was hit by a severe crisis that killed off numerous animal species.

Jurassic Park in a Petri dish: Scientists bring 500 million-year-old bacteria back to life - what could possibly go wrong?

A 500 million-year-old bacteria has been brought back to life in a laboratory at Georgia Tech in an experiment with echoes of Jurassic Park's disastrous recreation of the dinosaurs.

The researchers have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene and inserted it into a modern E Coli bacteria.

The 'Frankenstein' germ has thrived. In the lab, the creation has now lived through 1,000 generations.