Posted on 08/25/2009 11:04:37 AM PDT by OldDeckHand
After years spent hunting for the buried remains of prehistoric animals, a Canadian paleontologist now plans to manipulate chicken embryos to show he can create a dinosaur.
Hans Larsson, the Canada Research Chair in Macro Evolution at Montreal's McGill University, said he aims to develop dinosaur traits that disappeared millions of years ago in birds.
Larsson believes by flipping certain genetic levers during a chicken embryo's development, he can reproduce the dinosaur anatomy, he told AFP in an interview.
Though still in its infancy, the research could eventually lead to hatching live prehistoric animals, but Larsson said there are no plans for that now, for ethical and practical reasons -- a dinosaur hatchery is "too large an enterprise."
"It's a demonstration of evolution," said Larsson, who has studied bird evolution for the last 10 years.
"If I can demonstrate clearly that the potential for dinosaur anatomical development exists in birds, then it again proves that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs."
The research is funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Research Chairs program and National Geographic.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
IT’s like Biological Alchemy... hmmm, that would be a cool name for a band. Biological Alchemy.
Think of the commercial possibilities. On a diet of scrap plywood these beasts could crow to several tons in a year.
Oh sure. It’s all fun and games until someone becomes lunch.
Oh great....an 8 ton Rhode island rooster....crowing at daylight.
Biological Alchemy is a GREAT name for a band.
Check congress. It’s full of them!
When was the first time?
If these "genetic switches" exist, then it is likely that "genetic switch" and the genetic code for chicken existed in the dinosaur too.
Which would mean that the chicken DNA is not an "evolutionary product" but rather a selection of genetic potential that already existed from the beginning.
To say nothing of the literary possibilities. For the first time in decades, Tweety Bird could strike fear into the heart of the PuddyCat.
“Yeah, but when the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.”
We become the dinner?
When this is reported, it’s never close to happening. Just hype for attention. The question is what is being done now that isn’t reported....
A: We don't know, we've never been able to kill one.
The Colonel says “Boys we are going to need a whole lot more spices!”
Awsome!!!
The end of “Jurassic Park” wasn’t a nightmare.
It was a DREAM.
A dream of dodging triceratops on the freeway.
Of fighting my way into my home with a Franchi SPAS-12 or a Benelli M1 Super 90.
Of using a .50 cal to cover the dog while he went outside to crap.
I can only pray that this succeeds.
Wait till these chickens come home to roost.
I read a science fiction story once, where a scientist decided that crocodiles were lazy because of a heart defect. So he performed heart surgery on a few and they grew into dragons, bred and took over the world.
Of course the story didn’t explain why the offspring didn’t have the same genetic heart defect as it’s parents.
Just take some leftover otherwise useless stemcells out of Kennedy (decant that ol'boy right down to a Mason jar in fact) and turn a chicken into a Kennedy.
The Massachusetts Dems would vote for the chicken Fur Shur.
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