A behemoth from the early Clintonozoic era is lumbering back to life: The Jurassic Park series. A new, 3D installment in the series called Jurassic World will be released in June 2015, USA Today reports. The fourth movie in the franchise will be directed by Colin Trevorrow and will feature plenty of new dinosaurs on the rampage, Universal Pictures says.
But while the franchise is returning, new research suggests real dinosaurs never will, the Herald Sun reports. The original 1993 movie imagined that dinosaurs could be brought back using DNA preserved in amber, but a team trying to replicate the process couldn't extract usable DNA from insects that had been in the sub-fossilized precursor of amber for just 60 years. "One might imagine that the complete and rapid engulfment in resin, resulting in almost instantaneous demise, might promote the preservation of DNA in a resin entombed insect, but this appears not to be the case," the lead researcher says. "So, unfortunately, the Jurassic Park scenario must remain in the realms of fiction." (More Jurassic Park stories.)