Jurassic World

In this seemingly random episode, Andrew, Laura and Ben hear from a herd of scientists on dinosaur discovery, Chaos Theory and de-extinction, and try to avoid talking about Jurassic World for as long as possible.

Phil Manning chats to us about robot dinosaurs, finding fossils on beaches, and studying them using x-rays; Jim Al-Khalili gives us a quick run-down on chaos theory; Kathryn Boast lets us listen to some cosmic rays; and Beth Shapiro explains some of the science behind her book How to Clone a Mammoth. 

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With all that science, we were hard pushed to find time to talk about Jurassic World, but somehow managed to fit in a discussion of Jurassic Park's finer qualities. If you listen beyond the outtakes, you can also hear a very enthusiastic chat Andrew had with Andy Day, the star of Andy's Dinosaur Adventures.

The episode contains mild spoilers for Jurassics Park and World, and high levels of disappointment from at least two of the Shed team.

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Show notes

The interviews for this episode were carried out at Cheltenham Science Festival and Bristol Festival of Ideas.

Another relevant book Laura would highly recommend is The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert.