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- <text id=92TT1665>
- <title>
- July 27, 1992: Now for Something Really Nasty
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- July 27, 1992 The Democrats' New Generation
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 23
- HEALTH & SCIENCE
- Now for Something Really Nasty
- </hdr><body>
- <p>A new dinosaur find in Utah makes Tyrannosaurus rex look cuddly
- </p>
- <p> Dinosaur lore has it that Tyrannosaurus rex, the king of the
- giant lizards, was the meanest creature ever to roam the earth:
- 10 m (33 ft.) long with 15-cm (6-in.) teeth and a voracious
- appetite. But fossilized claw, skull and jaw bones found in a
- quarry in eastern Utah point to a dinosaur that, while smaller
- than Tyrannosaurus, was probably a whole lot nastier. Labeled
- the "Utahraptor" until a more suitable scientific name can be
- found, the 7-m (20-ft.), one-ton beast is the largest specimen
- ever seen of a variety of dinosaur known as the Velociraptor, an
- upright, fast-moving carnivore that sported an enormous claw on
- the back of each foot for slashing at prey. It was, according to
- one researcher, "the wolverine of the Cretaceous."
- </p>
- <p> Until the latest discovery, the largest veloci raptor ever
- found was about the size of a human. But that did not stop
- Steven Spielberg from featuring supersize velociraptors in his
- upcoming movie Jurassic Park, based on the Michael Crichton
- novel of the same name. In it, real dinosaurs, grown from bits
- of ancient DNA to populate a theme park, go on a rampage and
- terrorize humans trapped there. Until the Utah find, Spielberg's
- creatures would have been just another Hollywood exaggeration;
- now, they will seem even more monstrously real.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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