The Lark - A geek blog

Jurassic Park  is a 1993 American  science-fiction   adventure film  directed by  Steven Spielberg  and produced by  Kathleen Kennedy and  Gerald R. Molen . The first installment in the  Jurassic Park  franchise, it is based on the 1990  novel of the same name  by  Michael Crichton  and a screenplay written by Crichton and  David Koepp . The film is set on the fictional island of  Isla Nublar , located off  Central America 's Pacific Coast near  Costa Rica , where a billionaire philanthropist and a small team of genetic scientists have created a  wildlife park  of  cloned   dinosaurs . Before Crichton's novel was published, four studios put in bids for its film rights. With the backing of  Universal Studios , Spielberg acquired the rights for $1.5 million before its publication in 1990; Crichton was hired for an additional $500,000 to adapt the novel for the screen. Koepp w...

Mosquitoes are members of a group of about 3,500 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin culex meaning "gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by mosca and diminutive -ito) is Spanish and Portuguese for "little fly ". Mosquitoes have a slender segmented body , one pair of wings, one pair of halteres , three pairs of long hair-like legs, and elongated mouthparts. The mosquito life cycle consists of egg , larva , pupa , and adult stages. Eggs are laid on the water surface; they hatch into motile larvae that feed on aquatic algae and organic material . The adult females of most species have tube-like mouthparts (called a proboscis ) that can pierce the skin of a host and feed on blood , which contains protein and iron needed to produce eggs . Thousands of mosquito species feed on the blood of various hosts ⁠—  vertebrates , including mammals , birds, reptiles, amphibians , and some fish; along with some invertebrates , primari...

Jurassic Park  is a 1993 American  science-fiction   adventure film  directed by  Steven Spielberg  and produced by  Kathleen Kennedy and  Gerald R. Molen . The first installment in the  Jurassic Park  franchise, it is based on the 1990  novel of the same name  by  Michael Crichton  and a screenplay written by Crichton and  David Koepp . The film is set on the fictional island of  Isla Nublar , located off  Central America 's Pacific Coast near  Costa Rica , where a billionaire philanthropist and a small team of genetic scientists have created a  wildlife park  of  cloned   dinosaurs . Before Crichton's novel was published, four studios put in bids for its film rights. With the backing of  Universal Studios , Spielberg acquired the rights for $1.5 million before its publication in 1990; Crichton was hired for an additional $500,000 to adapt the novel for the screen. Koepp w...

Mr. DNA was a goofy yet uncanny cartoon character designed to explain to  Jurassic Park  tourists, who are assumed to be laymen, how InGen  recreated the dinosaurs . He was an anthropomorphic  DNA  helix with arms, legs, and a face. He was created solely for the movie and never appeared in the novels. Mr. DNA was created by  InGen  to help visitors understand the processes involved in the creation of the  dinosaurs  on  Jurassic Park . A film starring him and InGen's founder  John Hammond  would be played in a theater located in the park's  Visitor Center  before a tour. Mr. DNA also was used on the maintenance board of Jurassic Park's  Geothermal Power Plant  and on a board telling how tall a person must be to ride the upcoming  Bone Shaker  roller coaster. After the  Isla Nublar Incident of 1993  the cartoon character seemed to have been put out of service by his company for about a de...

Dilophosaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now North America during the Early Jurassic , about 193 million years ago. Three skeletons were discovered in northern Arizona in 1940, and the two best preserved were collected in 1942. The most complete specimen became the holotype of a new species in the genus Megalosaurus , named M. wetherilli by Samuel P. Welles in 1954. Welles found a larger skeleton belonging to the same species in 1964. Realizing it bore crests on its skull, he assigned the species to the new genus Dilophosaurus in 1970, as Dilophosaurus wetherilli. The genus name means "two-crested lizard", and the species name honors John Wetherill, a Navajo councilor. Further specimens have since been found, including an infant. Footprints have also been attributed to the animal, including resting traces. Another species, Dilophosaurus sinensis from China, was named in 1993, but was later found to belong to the genus Sinosaurus . At ab...