Most of us know that, realistically, Jurassic Park is not possible. Dinosaur DNA breaks down much too quickly to simply extract and re-implant. In other words, we are not going to be able to make a dinosaur from dinosaur fossils.
However, did you know that birds are dinosaurs? Scientists have even recently classified birds as non-avian dinosaurs, which means, we don’t have to make a dinosaur: we already have them!
The chicken is a dinosaur. Most of us might jokingly agree with that claim at suppertime (like little velociraptors!), but a chicken can’t be a dinosaur, right? Wrong. You can’t argue that a chicken is not a dinosaur because, as paleontologist Jack Horner says with a smile, “We are the classifiers, and we classified it that way!”
Through a process known as atavism activation, scientists can turn on ancestral characteristics of animals. If you’re a parent, you may know that, occasionally, children are born with tails (immediately surgically removed), or that snakes are occasionally born with legs. Those are re-activated ancestral characteristics or atavisms.
A scientist from the University of Wisconsin recently managed to “turn on” an atavism of chickens: teeth. Meanwhile, Horner is currently working on activating the dinosaur hand (which has evolved over time into a wing) and the dinosaur tail.
Learn more about how scientists are building a “dinosaur” from a chicken.
3 Comments
Atavism activation is nothing more than gene manipulation. It’s no different than how abnormalities appear in all animals due to a defect in their genetic codes, like a dog born with three legs, or a human born with dwarfism, etc. none of which we ancestral traits. But instead, these scientists are trying to “create” proof of a lie, called “EVOLUTION”.
….why? Useless waste of time & $$. Chickens are fine the way they are,spend the money on something,I dunno,USEFUL like reducing carbon emissions or better more humane chicken farms. The last time someone dicked around with Nature it went badly…#jurassicpark
I want one! 🙂 Even just the ‘toothed’ one right now! COOL!