 The Jurassic Park movies have drifted from science fiction toward

fantasy (they are arguably the best franchise about fantastic beasts)
but they began with a basis in fact: scientists really are looking for
ways to bring extinct species back to life.
 AI may be an important new tool in making it possible. Critics
contend that it will probably never happen and that we should focus
our resources on preserving the species we have left. Explore de-
extinction efforts and methods related to the animals listed below, then
discuss with your team: if it were possible, what species would you
want to bring back first? Are there any that we should leave in the
grave (or below the K-T boundary) forever?
o American chestnut | Wooly mammoth | Pyrenean ibex
o Passenger pigeon | Moa | Dragon | Dodo
 Not all efforts to restore extinct species involve locating old DNA
fragments and stitching them back together—for instance, one de-
extinction project in Europe is selectively "back breeding" very burly
cows to recreate a wild "supercow", the auroch, that hunters drove
into extinction in the 1600s. If they succeed in spawning new aurochs
just like those in cave art and the fossil record, would we consider
them no longer extinct? Should efforts be made to back-breed tiny
horses, or giant flightless birds, or Neanderthals?
 Even if we can't resurrect them, we do have a better sense now of
what Neanderthals looked like. Research how we are now able to
envision the "Old Man" of Shanidar, then discuss with your team:
why should we spend so much time on a species that went extinct
so long ago? Is it because some Neanderthal genes can still be found
in modern populations, especially in Europe and Asia? Would there
be value in creating a living history museum with robot
Neanderthals, or with people who dress up like them—or who
choose plastic surgery to look the part?
 If you want a selfie with the Pope, you can wait in line at the Vatican
and then not get a selfie with the Pope, or you can pay $25 to visit the
Dreamland Wax Museum in Boston. Discuss with your team: what
makes wax museums different than traditional sculpture
 collections? Would they still be considered museums if they featured
statues of past celebrities and historical figures slightly modified from
their real-life versions—say, Mother Theresa with wings, or Joseph
Harr with hair—or of people who never really existed, like George
Santos and Sherlock Holmes?
 If you want to talk with the Pope—any past pope—you can skip the
wax museum in favor of the nearest Internet connection; the
ChatGPT-like service Character.AI allows you to chat with historical
figures(how). It's okay if they're dead. Explore the service to assess
the value of conversing with these simulated personalities online.
Should celebrities and other figures need to agree to have their "chat
voices" outlive them—or do they surrender that right the moment they
enter the public eye? Do the dead have any ownership over their
voices, or can someone speak for them—and, if the latter, would it be
better to ask permission from their descendants, or from the
simulation of them? And should people have access to chatbot
simulations, built from texts, emails, journals, TikToks, and other
records, of their own deceased loved ones? Discuss with your team:
what could possibly go wrong—and what could possibly go right?

 The British monarch Richard III died in battle in 1485, but, for
centuries, no one knew where his body ended up. In 2012, a team of
archaeologists finally found it—under a parking lot. Analysis of his
remains revealed details (including his scoliosis) that otherwise would
have been lost to history. We are constantly unearthing artifacts that
teach us more about the past; in 2022, researchers unearthed
an ancient Buddhist temple in Pakistan, and, a few years before that,
possibly the fastest human in history. Discuss with your team: what
do we gain from knowing these smaller details about the past? If
we had discovered from Richard III's DNA that he was actually of
Mongol descent, or that he was a woman in disguise, would that
change our view of history in a meaningful way?
 The remains of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii have given
us insights into ancient Roman life that may not have been recorded in
any surviving texts—but that's only because Mount Vesuvius
 happened to erupt in 79 CE, effectively freezing it in time. Sadly,
countless other cities from other civilizations have come and gone;
they weren't lucky enough to get embalmed by volcanoes. Discuss
with your team: if a freak accident (or a higher-budget Covid sequel)
wiped out all life on Earth but left all our structures, what would
an alien anthropologist conclude about how we lived our lives?
 How much does it matter that we try to reconstruct what the
world looked like hundreds of millions of years ago? If it doesn't,
at what point in the timeline should we start trying to reconstruct
history?
 Investigate the following major archaeological and paleontological
discoveries. What strategies helped uncover them, and how did they
enhance our understanding of history? What circumstances allowed
for these discoveries to be preserved well enough for us to find them
so many years later?
o Rosetta Stone | Dead Sea Scrolls | Borobudur | Terracotta Army
o Lucy (fossil) | Sue (fossil) | Machu Picchu | Petra | Sutton Hoo
 Jurassic Park, Godzilla, and The Land Before Time depict dinosaurs
as giant scaly lizards(see immediate following highlighted line)—and
with good reason, as paleontologists used to picture them that way.
But more recent research has suggested otherwise; it's possible that
Spielberg's T. rex should have been a thing with animatronic feathers.
That's what the field of paleoart aims to visualize, even if the evidence
is incomplete. If a future paleoartist tried to reconstruct our world
using incomplete information, what would they get right? What
would they get wrong? Do you think they'd be stumped by fossil
evidence of dogs wearing sweaters?
 Terms and techniques
o excavation | remote sensing | zooarchaeology & archaeobotany
o carbon dating | dendrochronology | pseudoarchaeology