Story:
Scientists at Liverpool’s John Moore University have successfully cloned a dinosaur, a spokesman from the university said yesterday.
The dinosaur, a baby Apatosaurus nicknamed ‘Spot,’ is currently being incubated at the University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Other Versions
British scientists from Liverpool’s John Moore University have successfully cloned an Apatosaurus.
Analysis:
This extraordinary story of the world’s first cloned Dinosaur supposedly done by scientists at UK’s Liverpool’s John Moore University spread wide on internet, especially on social media sites. The report also featured a picture that claims to show the cloned baby Apatosaurus nicknamed “Spot”, and explains the creation was possible by retrieving the Dinosaur’s DNA from a fossil and injecting it into an ostrich’s womb. As unbelievable as it sounds, the claim is not a fact.
The story of the first cloned Dinosaur originated from an article published in a satirical website NewsHound.org, from where it was picked up and shared widely – even making into mainstream headlines. Like many such articles, the content had some flaws, like for example, the said “Liverpool’s John More University” is actually called Liverpool John Moores University, and the supposed LJMU professors quoted in the story, “Dr. Gerrard Jones” and “Dr. Gemma Sheridan” appear to be fictional characters, nowhere seen in the school’s faculty list.
The website News-Hound regularly publishes fake stories and fabricated news; a story that originated from the website included a possibly hoax claim that a Chinese man has sued his wife over ugly child and won $120,000. Moreover, if a Dinosaur had been successfully cloned, it would have been a major news event around the world. In fact, the article seems to have been published just before April 1, perhaps as a fools prank. As far as the image in the story is concerned, it is not any dinosaur; it is taken from a wildlife rescue website and actually shows a very young baby macropod (a kangaroo or wallaby).
So as of this writing, scientists did not clone a dinosaur, neither in Britain nor anywhere else; the claim originated from a satirical article. The fact that Dinosaur had been an interesting species that finds large place in research and movies motivates pranksters to create related hoax stories. A similar claim said that a 200-million-year old Dinosaur egg hatched in a Berlin museum.
Hoax or Fact:
Hoax.
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