Ah, crap.

[drcuriosity]

Michael Crichton just died of cancer, aged 66.
He wrote some good books, and inspired and directed some good films.
Bugger.

Comments

[norectangulars.livejournal.com]

Something like a tuatara might also work.
In any case, we don't actually know enough to know what to splice in (although we know how).

[basal-surge.livejournal.com]

Probably not. Tuataras are sphenodonts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatara), a lineage that split off rather a long time ago, and only distantly related to dinosaurs. They've got more in common with things like Dimetrodon and Moschops and some of the mammal-like reptiles of the Permo-triassic than they have with the dinosaurs, which are closer to birds (they reckon from the T-rex collagen they've recovered, that 'tastes like chicken' would be an adequate description, as it makes antibodies that react to chicken proteins become active.)