The next UNE Sci Flicks adventure will take viewers to a world where dinosaurs and humans have to find a peaceful balance and co-exist in the new Jurassic World: Dominion in which pragmatic palaeontologists transform their fossil discoveries into living, breathing dinosaurs.
UNE Sci Flicks will screen this Thursday 28th July at Armidale’s Belgrave Twin Cinema. UNE’s own PhD candidate in palaeontology Tim Frauenfelder, and Honours in Palaeontology student Kai Allison, will answer your burning questions in a Q&A after the film and share their incredible stories, knowledge and discoveries of the pre-historic world.
In the lead up to the screening, we spoke to Tim and Kai about some of their thoughts on the chances of a Jurassic World coming to life.
Q: What do you love about palaeontology?
Tim: I’ve always loved dinosaurs and have been interested in what the world was like back then. But I think the part I love the most is being one of the first people to find something new or come up with a new theory as to why something was the way it was back then. It is always exciting to me. There’s always an element of surprise when it comes to palaeontology.
Kai: Palaeontology is a beautiful and broad field that allows us scientists to study the history of life by looking at the fossil record, and better understanding the diverse array of creatures that lived on this earth in an evolutionary and geological context. But I really love that palaeontologists are just scientists that are following their childhood dream of studying dinosaurs.
Image: Tim Frauenfelder and Kai Allison with Dr Marissa Betts recording a Q&A interview ahead of the UNE Sci Flicks July event.
Q: As an involved member of the palaeontology community, what aspects of the film relate to your research?
Tim: I wish I could relate to studying the real deals! But, I think the parts that relate to my work are when they’re in the field digging up dinosaurs, as that’s what I’ve been able to do in places like Lightning Ridge (NSW), or Surat (Qld).
Kai: My research focused on finding a new method for estimating the centre of mass in dinosaurs. So every time a dinosaur walks or rears up on its hind legs - I’m always thinking about how it related to it’s centre of mass. In one of the first scenes of the original Jurassic World movie, a Brachiosaurus rears up on its hind legs. We now know that the Brachiosaurus would have been unable to do this, as its centre of mass is located quite far forward due to its large front limbs and neck.
Q: How realistic are all the Jurassic Park movies?
Tim: While some things in the movies are realistic or at least were the current knowledge at the time, there is some speculation or just things there for the excitement. I think some of the major non-realistic things which people are usually shocked to find out is that Velociraptorwas actually covered in feathers and about the size of a turkey.
Kai: People often question how realistic the dinosaurs look… Much of how we think dinosaurs look is subjective, especially in relation to colour. There is a lot of artistic interpretation required to fill in the gaps in our knowledge!
Q: Could dinosaurs really be cloned and come to life? Could humans really share the Earth with these prehistoric creatures?
Tim: Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to clone dinosaurs as the DNA needed doesn’t survive that long. I know there was a project that was trying to reverse engineer a chicken by changing its genes until it eventually grew teeth, a tail, and other dinosaur traits, but I don’t know how successful that was. At least we get to share the world with some dinosaurs: the birds!
Q: What’s your all-time favourite discovery or fact about the dinosaur world?
Tim: That’s a tough one. I’ll have to be a little biased and say the discovery of Fostoriafrom Lightning Ridge is my favourite. It was found in an opal mine back in 1984 and wasn’t brought to public attention until 2019. But what I love about it, was that the bones are encased in a large rock boulder, so they were CT scanned and eventually 3D printed - which was the first time the bones had been seen in 3D view for 100 million years. But, my favourite fact is that some dinosaurs, like the long-necked sauropods (think Brachiosaurus) would replace their teeth the fastest of any animal, with some replacing them every 15 days!
Kai: We live closer in time to the Tyrannosaurus rex than the Tyrannosaurus rex did to the Stegosaurus. The Tyrannosaurus rex lived approximately 68-66 million years ago, whereas the Stegosaurus lived approximately 155-150 million years ago. I think a lot of people think that dinosaurs more or less lived around the same time, which they did, but they dominated such a large part of life on Earth, and many of the dinosaurs that we see together in the film never existed anywhere near each-other on the geological timeline.
Image: Tim holding a rare dinosaur skull that he discovered and described earlier this year.
Q: What opportunities has UNE offered you in the dinosaur space?
Tim: It’s been great studying palaeontology at UNE as I’ve been able to travel Australia and overseas either researching or digging up dinosaurs. Having a place where I can explore my own research interests has been great.
Kai: UNE has provided me so many great opportunities to be involved in the field of palaeontology. This included digging up dinosaurs and preparing the fossils in the lab. The UNE Palaeoscience Research Centre will also be present at the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology (SVP) conference in Canada later this year, where many of us will be sharing our research with the international Palaeontology community. This will be an incredible opportunity to network and communicate with palaeontologists that I look up to.
Q: What’s the most exciting thing about discovering a new dinosaur fossil?
Tim: Finding a fossil is incredibly exciting as you’re the first person to see this bone or skeleton in millions and millions of years. It gives you a rush and makes you want to keep finding more. Even when I’m back in the laboratory removing the rock from the bone, it is always exciting being able to uncover what the entire bone or animal looked like.
Kai: Discovering a new dinosaur fossil is an incredible experience. I got to be involved with the Eromanga Natural History Museum in Queensland last year, and got to spend a week digging up a sauropod. Discovering new dinosaur bones, especially those of a long dinosaur, is mind blowing. I think sometimes we forget how giant these creatures were!
Event details:
When: Thursday, 28th July, 6pm
Where: Belgrave Twin Cinema, Armidale.
Who: Anyone wanting to watch the last film from the great Jurassic World trilogy, and learn the science behind the film from real palaeontologists who’ve worked and studied in the field.
Entry: You can purchase tickets via the Belgrave Cinema website.
You can read more about one of Tim's recent dinosaur discoveries here
