We're making a chickenosaurus
Looks like Jack Horner will get the last laugh with his own private army of dinosaurs.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jack_horner_building_a_dinosaur_from_a_chicken.html
Sorry if this has been posted before
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jack_horner_building_a_dinosaur_from_a_chicken.html
Sorry if this has been posted before
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yea i read it last week, great concept but tracing the gene back might prove tricky i think he'll pull it off though
yes, but they are gmos.
The answer is a definite yes, if you guys watched the video or read this man's book you will know about the pointless things we do with genetic technology these days to make things look "cooler". With his methods, it is waaaaaay easier to make a "dinosaur" than the Jurassic Park method or any other method. The thing is that I have to use quotations around the word dinosaur, because no matter how well he carries out this plan it will NEVER be a real dinosaur, the reason being is that, unless we build a time machine out of a delorean (or a car of the creator's choice), we will never know what a dinosaur really looked or behaved like. Because of this, we will in turn never be able to make a Chickenosaurus close enough to a real dinosaur. Now I'm not saying the Jurassic Park method or other methods would make a real dinosaur, because they never would, but if carried out correctly, it would be a lot closer to a real one than the upgraded special at a fast food restaurant. I know that this will be done though, using his method, I don't know if Jack Horner himself will see it done in his lifetime, but his followers and colleagues will get it done and we will see our Chickenosaurus.
This will of course be an extraordinary milestone in the history and future of genetic engineering, but only a minor milestone compared to what it will lead to. I believe that after Mr. Horner and his colleagues design thier Chickenosaurus, we will be seeing a more true dinosaur in the next couple of decades because with our advancements in technology and our new technology-based generations that are growing up, the Costa Rican government may have to be making some crucial choices pretty soon. I don't mean that we will necessarily see a mosquito-spawned dino on an island, but I think that we will get is something that would make the great Michael Crichton proud, and make the people that succeed at doing it and all of the Jurassic Park fans plus the rest of the world, just as proud of Mr. Crichton's works.
Your work will always
be remembered as two
of the greatest books
and movies of all time...
Thank You!
Of course, knowing exactly what all those changes have been is impossible, as we don't have dinosaur DNA to compare against directly. But given that evolution tends toward adding new mutations onto the existing genome, rather than changing the existing foundation, much of that raw material should still be there in chickens (just like humans and chimps share a ton of foundation work from our own common ancestors, we have just evolved to modify it in different ways.)
That is, if you look at how a chicken embryo develops, things like the absence of teeth in the hatched form are due to a genetic change that causes the teeth to be ungrown (resorbed) after they are already started; it seems to be safer for genetic stability, evo-devo-wise, to modify what's already there than to try to take out the teeth at the start, because that kind of fundamental change might also cause jaw or skull deformities. Teeth have been around a very long time, so it's easier and safer for evolution to override them by making a new change at a later, more detailed stage in development. So it would only be undoing the comparatively rare mutations to the legacy DNA that would have to rely on educated guesswork, assuming a good job can be done (experimentally) to figure out which of the later changes to undo.
Now, whether that chicken-ancestral dinosaur is even one we already know about from the fossil record is another question. But that would actually be more exciting than if it revealed something we already recognize. There's little question that there were lots of animals we still don't know ever existed, because fossilization is so relatively rare. The "gaps" we see in the historical record are not necessarily because big jumps occurred, but because no examples of the intermediate forms have been found yet. We're watching the movie of life by grabbing a few frames from every minute of film, so to speak, so the chickensaur should fall into the known hierarchy somewhere, but may not look exactly like anything known.
Sorry for the long-winded post -- this is one of my hobby interests, along with adventure games.
Don't apologise, that was a great post and an interesting read!
He's been a hero of mine since I was a kid, but I haven't seen him speak publicly like this since the dino documentaries I used to watch in the 1980s and 90s. Good to see he is as entertaining and brilliant as ever.
A lot of his theories are poo-pooed by the scientific community (like tyrannosaurs being strict scavengers), based on suspect research (pachycephalosaurus, dracorex and stigymoloch are the same species), or presented as absolute fact when they are actually as-of-yet unproven and highly challenged hypotheses (triceratops morphed into torosaurus).
Nevertheless, his resume of solid, irrefutable discoveries -- and his important contributions to paleontology and our understanding of dinosaurs -- cannot be denied. The "chickenosaur" idea is fascinating and would not only unlock more understanding into the world of dinosaurs, but also biology, genetics, and evolution as well.
Thought it was an ostrich?
Anyway you guys saying that we'll never get dinosaurs?
You'll see when we see Jack Horner holding a flaming sword going into battle against mankind on the back of a 40ft long giant ostrichosaurus-rex being followed by a massive flock viturkoraptors, with chickenosuarus to clear up the mess left behind.
And on that day that image will be so awesome that mankind will instantly vote him president of earth. You'll see...
the chickenasaurus will only be brought back by triggering continuos avatisms ( ancient genetic traits that sometimes re-appear in an animal) they hope to find the mesozoic features which i do believe they have. but genetically the bird will have the behaviour and temperment of your typical KFC chicken. but it will resemble something like mabey archeopteryx or velociraptor mongolenesis although the head may be smaller. horner doesnt mention if the avatisms will effect the skull
Plus he's one of the top dinosaur experts out there having served as advisor for many films dealing in prehistoric things.
My interpretation of what a chickenosaurus might look like.