Rumors are running wild that a real-life Jurassic Park is in the works, but after the man behind the project has denied the claims, only one question remains: Will life find a way?
Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has reportedly been discussing plans to make a theme park based on the 1993 film "Jurassic Park" that would feature real-life genetically cloned dinosaurs, the Gold Coast Bulletin reports (h/t The Daily Mail). The idea may seem outlandish, but it wouldn't be the first time the man worth an estimated $8 billion made some larger-than-life dioramas; he's already commissioned a replica of the Titanic from a Chinese shipbuilder that's slated to be done by 2016.
But according to the man himself, the Jurassic Park rumors are just that.
"It's just a beat-up of a story and untrue," Palmer told the Gold Coast Bulletin.
A press conference scheduled for Friday is likely to shed further light on whether Palmer intends to become the real-life John Hammond or not, according to The Daily Mail.
Even if Palmer’s plans are nothing more than myth, it seems that a Jurassic Park-style tourist attraction is destined to become a reality. Already, scientists have said that a wooly mammoth “could be born in four or five years" using cloning.
Likewise, the "Symposium on the Future of Zoos" held in Buffalo last February, predicted that attractions could one day include extinct cloned animals such as the dodo bird and so-called “Tasmanian Wolf.”
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