EDIT: Retraction. I’ve believed this to be true since the '90s, but it is apparently wrong.
Michael Crichton came up with idea of looking for dinosaur DNA inside biting insects in amber. Scientists tried it and it worked! They didn’t get even close to enough DNA to clone a dinosaur. The molecules were super degraded. But there was something there!
That’s wrong. Scientists were looking at DNA in amber in the late 80s, Crighton got the idea from published work.
Writers often visit university researchers to ask for story ideas. I consulted on Regenesis.
Watch 2001 - A Space Odyssey. They use Tablets. The movie is from 1969 or so.
Arthur C. Clarke was writing about geostationary orbits in the 1940s. The first satellite was put in one until the 1960s. But I don’t think he conceived it, more popularized it.
Transparent alumimum?
It existed long before sci fi. Sapphires and rubies.
