Print yourself a dinosaur

Too bad the printed plastics I've seen aren't that strong. Drexel University is planning to scan and 3-D print dinosaur bones. They'll be able to fiddle with the design to undo the crushing and compression and create copies that are very similar to the originals.

At first this has to be single bones or skulls (everybody like T-Rex), but one goal is to create a complete model. Since skeletons aren't complete, that means rescaling bones from one to match another--which should be straightforward.

Clothing the bones is another matter entirely. Even assembling them is a project. Bone is pretty strong for its size, and assembling these 3-D models would create something heavy but not strong. I think you'd need some internal "skeleton" for the bones to support the weight. Maybe mock up something that looks like the connective tissue to hide the joints. That would tend to look more creepy than fascinating, so perhaps not; and in any event we don't know how big their tendons were.

And if I recall correctly, there are still arguments about the stance of the Tricerotops.

So maybe they'll spin off a firm to make velociraptor skulls. (Didn't Newt have a T-Rex model skull in his office back in the day?)