Building a dinosaur from a chicken - Jack Horner
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Renowned paleontologist Jack Horner has spent his career trying to reconstruct a dinosaur. He's found fossils with extraordinarily well-preserved blood vessels and soft tissues, but never intact DNA. So, in a new approach, he's taking living descendants of the dinosaur (chickens) and genetically engineering them to reactivate ancestral traits — including teeth, tails, and even hands — to make a "Chickenosaurus."
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John R. "Jack" Horner (born June 15, 1946) is an American paleontologist who discovered and named Maiasaura, providing the first clear evidence that some dinosaurs cared for their young. He is one of the best-known paleontologists in the United States. In addition to his many paleontological discoveries, Horner served as the technical advisor for all of the Jurassic Park films, and even served as partial inspiration for one of the lead characters, Dr. Alan Grant.
Mary Higby Schweitzer is a paleontologist at North Carolina State University, who is known for leading the groups that discovered the remains of blood cells in dinosaur fossils and later discovered soft tissue remains in the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen MOR 1125, as well as evidence that the specimen was a pregnant female when she died. More recently, Schweitzer's work has shown molecular similarities between Tyrannosaurus remains and chickens, providing further evidence of the bird-dinosaur connection.
New "Chicken From Hell" Dinosaur Discovered The 66-million-year-old feathered dino resembled a giant, demonic bird. The 500-pound (225-kilogram) dinosaur probably ate a variety of vegetation, small animals, and eggs.
About 100 years ago, scientists discovered that the Brontosaurus never existed. So why are they still hanging around? And what's up with the fuzzy Tyrannosaurus? More here.
Mary Higby Schweitzer is a paleontologist at North Carolina State University, who is known for leading the groups that discovered the remains of blood cells in dinosaur fossils and later discovered soft tissue remains in the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen MOR 1125, as well as evidence that the specimen was a pregnant female when she died. More recently, Schweitzer's work has shown molecular similarities between Tyrannosaurus remains and chickens, providing further evidence of the bird-dinosaur connection.
New "Chicken From Hell" Dinosaur Discovered The 66-million-year-old feathered dino resembled a giant, demonic bird. The 500-pound (225-kilogram) dinosaur probably ate a variety of vegetation, small animals, and eggs.
About 100 years ago, scientists discovered that the Brontosaurus never existed. So why are they still hanging around? And what's up with the fuzzy Tyrannosaurus? More here.
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