Posted on 11/03/2007 7:44:49 PM PDT by 49th
The chicken egg has been prepped for surgery – a pea-size hole cut in the shell and covered with sticky tape. And now Hans Larsson, a McGill University researcher, removes it from the incubator, places it under a microscope and prepares to operate.
He gently peels off the tape and teases back the membranes that line the shell with tweezers. Through the eyepiece, he can see the tiny dot of a heart, steadily beating. He can also see the bud where he implants a milky bead doused in a protein. He hopes it will coax the embryo to grow a big tail. A dinosaur-like tail.
paleontologist, Prof. Larsson spends a significant portion of his time doing traditional dinosaur hunting, digging fossils as far afield as the Arctic and Africa with jackhammers and pickaxes. But he has long been frustrated with the limitations of studying old bones and what they reveal about the mysteries of evolution.
It was by examining ancient skeletons that paleontologists learned that modern birds, including chickens, descended from dinosaurs and that their relatives include such fierce predators as Tyrannosaurus rex. What fossils don't reveal, though, is how exactly such dramatic anatomical changes first arose. How did teeth the size of bananas turn into beaks? Or mighty tails become wimpy, feathered stumps?
For answers, Prof. Larsson has turned to the burgeoning field of evo-devo – or evolutionary developmental biology – a radical new approach to understanding the past.
It is based on the astonishing discovery that modern animals, including humans, share many of the same body-building genes and that some of these genes have been around for millions of years.
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
Interesting. Good article.
So he is growing a giant chicken?
somewhat... he’s making chicken embryos express latent genetic traits like dinosaur-like tails. The embryos are all terminated before they would hatch, though the scientist does admit at one point that if he could figure out how to make a chicken embryo develop into a dinosaur (which is apparently theoretically possible, which is what the article is essentially about) he’d probably want to allow one to hatch, at least once.
I just thought I would inject a little humor.
There are smart evolutionists, and then there are the not so smart ones. Let's just say this is the first time I've seen an evolutionist claim that beak tissue is descended from teeth.
Aah, from reading the article a little more closely, it says
Now why a guy would want a chicken with a big 'ol giant lizard tail, I have no idea...except;
If this works, one could open up really bitchin' fried "alligator" tail/fried chicken stand.
It could work(!), as long as one didn't forget to also offer up good biscuits, beans, and coleslaw, too.
don’t forget the honey butter!
Now you’re talking.
More white meat!!!
YEC INTREP
The third drumstick?
BIG drumstick! Fire up the barbie.
I’m not sure I want to eat chicken butt.
A chicken with a 30 foot tail would be worth paying 50 cents to see at a gas station along Route 66.
I prefer pig or cow butt myself but I’m not that picky.
“Frankenchicken”
“It’s shocking that inaccuracies like this continue to seep through contemporary and mainstream science articles.”
It is worse when it is done at a university level. I remember taking an intro zoology (freshman level) course while a university student back in the late 70s. The instructor was still using Haeckel’s(sp?) recapitualization theory as “proof” of evolution. Even at that time the theory had long been abandoned. Of course, that recapitualization was shown to be false didn’t invalidate evolution, but it was disturbing that it was still being used as evidence to support evolutionary theory.
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