They're massive, awe-inspiring -- and full of mystery. For many of us, dinosaurs helped catalyze a love of learning and still make us feel like kids from their posts in museum halls and DK Eyewitness books. Brian Switek takes a tour of the creatures' legacy in My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road With Old Bones, New Science, And Our Favorite Dinosaurs. He's on Think at noon.
What better example of dinosaurs' hallowed place in our imaginations than Jurassic Park? From the first few bars of its epic theme, Jurassic Park can quicken pulses with its larger-than-life imaginings of the prehistoric world meeting ours. Academy Award-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom told Jacki Lyden it was "the best job ever."
"It scared me when I first saw [the offer] because there's so many different dinosaurs, and it was Steven Spielberg, and people would see it. It freaked me out," he says. "But there was no bigger candy store for sound design than Jurassic Park."
Find out which animals -- and bystanders with secret talents -- actually produced the velociraptor screeches you hear in the film.
Listen to Think from noon to 2 p.m., Monday through Thursday, on KERA 90.1. You can stream the show at kera.org.