Strange

Scientist Aims to Turn Chickens into Dinosaurs

by candice.tsuei | August 26, 2009 at 12:12 pm

2070 views | 11 Recommendations | 9 comments

After the extinction of dinosaurs from hundred million years ago, a Canadian paleontologist aims to create live dinosaurs by manipulating chicken embryos.

Hans Larsson, a researcher in macro evolution at McGill University in Montreal, has spent years hunting for the buried remains of prehistoric animals, claimed that he will try to reverse-engineer a dinosaur from a chicken by altering certain key genetic signals known to have evolved since the Cretaceous during the early phases of a chicken embryo's ontogeny.

"We should be able to regenerate or essentially make the genetic program mimic the way it was at say, 150 million years ago, and grow a longer tail, change its plumage to something a little bit more primitive, have three-clawed fingers, some teeth," he said.

The chicken-dinasour project, funded by the Natural sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Research Chairs Program, and National Geographic, will focus on chicken eggs as birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs. The goal is to find out what genes are turning on and off and how cells are moving within the embryo, Larsson explained.

While Larsson expresses confidence that the project could eventually lead to hatching live dinosaur-like creatures, he also acknowledges that there are a lot of practical and ethical hurdles to overcome first. For the time being he says, a dino nursery is simply “too large an enterprise.”

The idea for the project emerged during Larsson's conversation with renowned American paleontologist Jack Horner, who was also the technical advisor for the Jurassic Park films. He recently wrote a book titled "How to Build a Dinosaur," in which he refers to the embryo experiment as part of a quest to create a "chickenosaurus."

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kknklnkjln (not verified)

at 13:02 on August 26th, 2009

bloody hell ! jurassic comes true

Cerbera82 (not verified)

at 15:05 on August 26th, 2009

wonder what that would taste like in a club sandwich xD

rl (not verified)

at 22:05 on August 26th, 2009

it would be the usual line ' tastes like chicken'

harvey jennings (not verified)

at 23:32 on August 26th, 2009

chickens eat worms are they going to enginer some bloody great worms as well

generaldecay

at 00:09 on August 27th, 2009

I saw this headline before I went to bed last night and it really made me laugh. This story is excellent! (Although I know that it is Very Serious Science and I shouldn't be laughing!)

Chrisasurus (not verified)

at 00:35 on August 27th, 2009

I think they are all Clucking Mad!

no name (not verified)

at 00:42 on August 27th, 2009

with all the problems going on in the world and the evalution of the chicken already taken place so many years ago, what good is reversing it. who pays for it? the same people cloning the mammoth i guess. same people messing with nature.

somerset man (not verified)

at 00:44 on August 27th, 2009

a poem /the chicken chickens with teeth chickens with tails dont eat worms dont eat snails gone on to better things like rabbits and cats one did escape no answer to that where will it end the reporter replied a rustle in the bushes a blood curdling cry chicken dinasaur a glint in its eye !!