…and this is a 
I've been reading a new book by Jack Horner and James Gorman, How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), and I was pleasantly surprised. It's a book that gives a taste of the joys of geology and paleontology, talks at some length about a recent scientific controversy, acknowledges the importance of evo-devo, and will easily tap into the vast mad scientist market.
It is a little scattered, in that it seems to be the loosely assembled concatenation of a couple of books, but that's part of the appeal; read the chapters like you would a collection of short stories, and you'll get into the groove.
The first part is about Horner's life in Montana, the Hell Creek formation, and dinosaur collecting. Hand this to any kid and get him hooked on paleontology for life; I recall reading every book I could get my hands on that talked about Roy Chapman Andrews as a young'un, and it permanently twisted me…in a good way. This will have the same effect, and many people will think about heading out to Garfield County for a little dusty adventure. I know I am — all that stands in my way is South Dakota.
A good chunk of the book is about molecules and how they show the relatedness of dinosaurs to birds, and to the work of Horner's former student, Mary Schweitzer, who discovered soft tissue in T. rex bones. Horner presents a good overview of the subject, but is also appropriately cautious. You'll get a good feel for the difficulty of finding this material, and for interpreting it; he clearly believes that these are scraps of real T. rex tissue, but how intact it is, what kinds of changes have occurred in it, and how much information will be extractable from these rare bits of preserved collagen (or whatever) is left an open question.
Finally, the subject of the title…Horner was an advisor to the Jurassic Park movies, and right away he dismisses the idea of extracting 65 million year old DNA in enough quantity to reconstitute a dinosaur as clearly nothing but a fantasy. That's simply not how it can be done. But he does have a grand, long-term plan for recreating a dinosaur.
What is it? Why, it's developmental biology, of course. Development is the answer to everything.
Here's his vision, and I found it believable and captivating: start with a modern dinosaur, a chicken, figure out the developmental pathways that make it different from an ancient dinosaur, and tweak them back to the ancestral condition. For instance, birds have lost the long bony tail of their ancestors, reducing it to a little stump called a pygostyle. In the embryo, they start to make a long tail, but then developmental switches put a kink in it and reduce it to a stub. If we could only figure out what specific molecules are signaling the tissue to take this modern reducing path and switch them off, then maybe we could produce a generation of chickens with the long noble tails of a velociraptor.
My first thought was skepticism — it can't be that easy. There may be a simple network of genes that regulate this one early decision to form a pygostyle from a tail, but there have been tens of millions of years of adaptation by other genes to the modern condition; we're dealing with a large network of interlinked genes here, and unraveling one step in development doesn't mean that subsequent steps are still competent to respond in the ancient pattern. But then, thinking about it a little more, one of the properties of the genome is its plasticity and ability to respond in a coherent, integrated way to changes in one part of a gene network. That capacity might mean you could reconstitute a tail.
And then, once you've got a tailed chicken, you could work on adding teeth to the jaws. And foreclaws. And while you're at it, find the little genomic slider that controls body size, and turn it up to 11. What he's proposing is a step-by-step analysis of chicken-vs.-dinosaur decisions in the developmental pathways, and inserting intentional atavisms into them. This is all incredibly ambitious, and it might not work…but the only way to find out is try. I like that in a scientist. Turning a chicken into a T. rex is a true Mad Scientist project, and one that I must applaud.
One reservation I have about this section of the book is that too much time is spent dwelling over ethical concerns. Need I mention that real Mad Scientists do not fret over the footling trivia of the Institutional Review Board? These are chicken embryos, animals that your average member of the taxpaying public finds so inconsequential that they will pay to have them homogenized into spongy-textured slabs of yellow protein to be slapped onto their McMuffin. Please, people, get some perspective.
As for respecting the chickens themselves, what can be grander and more respectful than this project? I would whisper to my chickens, "With these experiments, I will take your children's children's children, and give them great ripping claws like scythes, and razor-sharp serrate fangs like daggers, and I will turn them into multi-story towers of muscle and bone that will be able to trample KFC restaurants as if they were matchboxes." And their eyes would light up with a feral gleam of primeval ambition, and they would offer me their ovaries willingly. I'd be doing the chickens a favor. Maybe some chicken farmers would have cause to be fearful, but I wouldn't be working on their embryos, so let them tremble.
Oh, all right. Horner is taking the responsible path and putting some serious thought into the ethics of this kind of experiment, which is the right thing to do. It's also the kind of project that will generate serious and useful information about developmental networks, even if it fails in its ultimate aim.
But I have a dream, too. Of a day when biotechnology is ubiquitous, and middle-class kids everywhere will have a cheap DNA sequencer and synthesizer in their garages, and a freezer with handy vectors and enzymes for directed insertional mutagenesis. And one day, Mom will come home with a box of fresh guaranteed organic free range chicken eggs, and Junior's eyes will glitter with a germ of a cunning plan, fed by a little book he found in the library…and 30-foot-tall fanged chickens will triumphantly stride the cul-de-sacs of suburbia, and the roar of the dinosaur will be heard once again.
Life Science
Comments
Posted by: Michelle | May 18, 2009 2:58 PM
Forgive the over-simplification:
KICK ASS!
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2009 3:00 PM
T. rex is a doubtful outcome, but you juuuust might cobble together a decently convincing dromaeosaur.
And that would be cool.
Posted by: MissyAnne Thrope | May 18, 2009 3:01 PM
Hmmm...huge, ferocious chickens.
Like this one?
http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/display/f7d7d00e-7576-49a5-88e8-31b37003219c.jpg
Posted by: brightmoon | May 18, 2009 3:04 PM
sounds intriguing
definitely would shut up the 'birds arent dinosaurs' crowd if it works
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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May 18, 2009 3:05 PM
Well sure, just figure out all the developmental pathways that make it different from a dinosaur--and that without non-avian dinosaur DNA or visible developmental pathways.
Two things--assuming that we don't get dinosaur DNA (amber might be able to preserve it all that time, but it's hard to see it getting into amber) there is information irrevocably lost. We might with huge amounts of work and money come up with something similar, but we'd never know how similar. The second one--well, how important really is it to get a non-avian dinosaur?
And ID really isn't very plausible--unless the designer is god. Can anyone really tweak a bird into a viable dinosaur in captivity, or is there really too much going on in evolution? I tend to think the latter, that tweaking anything to resemble what evolved is at best extremely difficult, at least without DNA to use for a guideline.
Mammoths might be recapitulated using elephants, because we'll probably have their DNA (which isn't everything either, but it sure is a lot). Dinosaurs? Without getting hold of their DNA, evolution might be the only thing that could come close to them again.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Posted by: MScott
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May 18, 2009 3:06 PM
I saw some TV show just in the last year or two (on Nat Geo I think) where somebody had already started exactly that experiment with retrograding chickens (first baby steps). Wish I could remember more detail.
They hadn't taken thing as far as letting altered chickens hatch, but they were watching the changes in development of the embryos to see that they were on the right track.
Posted by: Hopalong Cassowary | May 18, 2009 3:06 PM
The 'birds aren't dinosaurs' crowd?
I'm not sure I...
Posted by: PZ Myers
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May 18, 2009 3:07 PM
I'm more ambitious than that. It would shut up all of my enemies. Also mild critics, friends, and anyone who ever tries to give me a parking ticket.
Posted by: Shaden Freud | May 18, 2009 3:07 PM
This too.
Posted by: glenister_m | May 18, 2009 3:10 PM
Reminds me of a dream of mine when I was a kid. To de-evolve a dragonfly into the form of its 3 foot wingspan ancestor. It would be cool to see those flying around at the cottage.
(Not for long of course since they would lack both the agility for modern prey, and tolerance for the reduced O2 levels in the modern atmosphere. Still they would be neat to see. I would not be too crazy about the idea of bringing back a Mesothelae from the same era...)
Posted by: RamblinDude
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May 18, 2009 3:12 PM
". . . and give them great ripping claws like scythes, and razor-sharp serrate fangs like daggers, and I will turn them into multi-story towers of muscle and bone that will be able to trample KFC restaurants as if they were matchboxes."
Yeah, like KFC won't figure out a way to turn them into snack nuggets. I can see the comercials now: "Got a monstrous appetite? Try our new Raptor Pack . . .”
Posted by: Amancay | May 18, 2009 3:13 PM
For instance, birds have lost the long bony tail of their ancestors, reducing it to a little stump called a pygostyle.
Chefs call the chicken's stumpy tail the Pope's nose.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | May 18, 2009 3:14 PM
Hmmm... you're assuming it would do your bidding, out of gratitude for your having reverse-evolved it into existence? Jeff Goldblum would like to have a word with you, I think. ;^)
OTOH, I love the mental picture of you strolling down the boulevard with a velociraptor on a leash, quietly whistling "Walk the Dinosaur" and daring anyone to diss you.
Posted by: The Science Pundit
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May 18, 2009 3:16 PM
Wasn't that discovery sharply criticized for possibly misidentifying bacterial biofilm as soft tissue?
Posted by: Isaac | May 18, 2009 3:17 PM
"definitely would shut up the 'birds arent dinosaurs' crowd if it works"
Actually Horner himself knows it won't:
Wired: It would certainly prove the creationists dead wrong.
Horner: Religion is about faith, not evidence. Comparing science and religion isn't like comparing apples and oranges—it's more like apples and sewing machines.
http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/17-03/st_qa
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 18, 2009 3:17 PM
Once upon a time, four blind men were walking in the forest, and they bumped into a thirty foot tall chicken.
Moe was in front, and found himself holding the wattles. "It has a scrotum," he said. "I think we have found a giant!"
Larry bumped into the side of the chicken. "It's a wall," he said, "A big, scaly wall."
Curly, at the back, touched the tail. "It's nothing to worry about, nothing but a sinewy feather boa dragging on the trail."
Eagletosh saw the interruption as an opportunity to sit in the shade beneath a tree and relax. "It is my considered opinion," he said, "that whatever it is has--"
But that was the last Moe Larry and Curly heard from Eagletosh, that is, if you don't count the resounding belch from the thirty foot tall chicken.
Posted by: cynickal | May 18, 2009 3:19 PM
Isn't a chicken with long tail and teeth a cockatrice?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockatrice
Of course then you'd need to find a way to make them able to calcify a person with their gaze...
Posted by: blf
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May 18, 2009 3:23 PM
Ah-hah! Now we know why Dr Free-ride is trying to breed fast indestructible flying supersized intelligent gastropods: To defend against the 30-foot-tall fanged chickens.
Why start with gastropods? Perhaps because snails already come armoured? And she's got a large supply in her backyard, apparently having mastered the art of breeding the boring normal variety. I suppose the independently movable sensors (eye-stalks) are rather handy as well.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2009 3:24 PM
That's a very difficult tune to "whistle softly." BOOM BOOM LACKALACKALACKA BOOM! BOOM BOOM LACKALACKA BOOM-BOOM!Posted by: Diego | May 18, 2009 3:26 PM
The fools at the Institute said I was mad! Now I'll show them, show them all! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Posted by: Clemens | May 18, 2009 3:27 PM
You might get into trouble with Randall, though.
And speeking of mad scientists, the current xkcd is also quite awesome. Chomp chomp.
Posted by: CatBallou
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May 18, 2009 3:28 PM
As a vegan, I'm confident that the 30-foot-tall fanged chickens will pass right by me!
They will, won't they? Please?
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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May 18, 2009 3:28 PM
I am so reminded of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI. Chickens in choppers.
Posted by: FlyingSpaghettiTroll
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May 18, 2009 3:30 PM
[quote]And one day, Mom will come home with a box of fresh guaranteed organic free range chicken eggs, and Junior's eyes will glitter with a germ of a cunning plan, fed by a little book he found in the library…and 30-foot-tall fanged chickens will triumphantly stride the cul-de-sacs of suburbia, and the roar of the dinosaur will be heard once again.[/quote]
Inevitably the first one will be found in a 14 year old boy's bladder, who just happened to be peeing when it crawled up his urethra.
-FST
Posted by: SplendidMonkey
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May 18, 2009 3:31 PM
I'll have the side of ribs big enough to tip my car over.
Yabba Dabba Doo!
Posted by: John | May 18, 2009 3:32 PM
How many generations would it take to get them up to size, given the increasing size of the eggs to be developed and delivered in relatively smaller mothers? And wasn't this an episode of Jimmy Neutron?
Posted by: Josh
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May 18, 2009 3:33 PM
Posted by: Fred the Hun
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May 18, 2009 3:34 PM
A couple of weeks ago I was driving somewhere and caught Jack Horner and James Gorman being interviewed by Dianne Rehm about this book.
I thought it was fantastic. However I too was struck by so much time being spent on ethical concerns when talking about chickens. It just so happened I had a bag of buffalo wings in the car which I was planning on eating for a quick lunch.
I ended up having this fantasy about gigantic spicy chicken wings with claws on the ends...Yum!
Posted by: Priya Lynn | May 18, 2009 3:36 PM
The idea of regressing genes enough to turn a chicken into a specific dinosaur sounds much farther fetched than the possibility of finding ancient DNA to reconstitute an actual original
Posted by: Josh
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May 18, 2009 3:37 PM
Fucking SB. That was supposed to be fucking preview, not post.
Perhaps:
Huh? I'm confused. Why is a tyrannosaurid a more doubtful outcome than a dromaeosaurid? Because T. rex is a species and hitting a "family"-level target might be easier to pull off than hitting a species-level target? Or because of the presumed phylogenetic distance between dromaeosaurs and modern birds? Or something else?
Posted by: chris | May 18, 2009 3:38 PM
I'm thinking about the eggs. Too much for a single person. A raptor egg would be family size at least. How would the supermarkets manage to package them? If we're going to fantasize we must be practical......
Posted by: No One Of Consequence | May 18, 2009 3:40 PM
I immediately placed this book on reserve at the local library so my 13 year old Future Mad Scientist son can read it. This is his current life goal - to bring back dinosaurs.
Posted by: Benny the Icepick | May 18, 2009 3:41 PM
//maybe we could produce a generation of chickens with the long noble tails of a velociraptor.//
Don't tell Randall Munroe!
Posted by: raven | May 18, 2009 3:42 PM
They have been able to produce chickens with teeth. Two different ways in fact.
First they used mouse inducer tissue to signal the right chicken tissue to produce teeth.
There is also a chicken mutant that produces ......teeth.
Of course, none of this proves that chickens are descended from toothed ancestors like the fossils that god (or satan) planted indicate.
Posted by: FlyingSpaghettiTroll
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May 18, 2009 3:43 PM
While we're at screwing with the genetics of everything in fantasy land, we might as well add twist caps to the eggs, and have them pre-scrambled. Maybe some convenient distribution of carotenoids could lead to a creepy looking raptor mascot on the front.
Posted by: Holbach
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May 18, 2009 3:47 PM
Shaden Freud @ 9
That's funny! And I thought Jurassic Park was all make-believe. And if it wasn't for the loss of that Barbasol can we would be evading those critters right now!
Posted by: raven | May 18, 2009 3:49 PM
There is nothing about science that says we can't back evolve something resembling a dinosaur. Another group was looking at the difference between a mouse's forelimb and a bat's wing. If we really understood developmental biology , one should be able to make flying mice.
We need to know more about developmental biology to do it. A lot more.
This project will end up like a lot of them. It will cost more and take longer than anyone thinks it will.
Posted by: Sigmund | May 18, 2009 3:50 PM
Mary Schweitzer had a paper in 'Science' a few weeks back about another protein extraction from a 68 million year old dinosaur specimen (not a T rex this time but a vegetarian whose name Ive forgotten). This time the data is looking much more solid that it is indeed real proteins rather than artefactual contaminants.
I was surprised that the only one on Scienceblogs that covered it was Ed from "Not Exactly Rocket Science"
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2009 3:50 PM
Well, it seems to me that if the technique involves twiddling around with developmental switches, the most one can expect is that you end up with a highly tweaked chicken that looks a lot like a kind of (non-avian [insert as needed below]) dinosaur. The structural genes that are being turned on & off at different times are still the chicken's genes. No actual dinosaur species that ever actually lived is possible to recreate, in part because every branch in the phylogeny between chickens and that particular dinosaur species involves an unknowable number of genetic differences, and in part because we have very little idea of what any particular dinosaur species was like beyond bones and some hints of skin and feathers. A chicken with a long, bony tail and teeth is like a non-avian dinosaur, but it will never be one, or at least we can never know whether it "is" one or not. And it's going to be most like the most avian of non-avian dinosaurs. Which I think are dromaeosaurs but I'm too lazy to google it.Posted by: frog | May 18, 2009 3:51 PM
My ethical concern: a massive comeback in cock-fighting.
Posted by: MIKE | May 18, 2009 3:53 PM
@14
She has since then found another T.rex bone with some remaining tissue. It was reported about here on scienceblogs, but I can't find it.
If you care to look up the paper, here's where you can find it an some others:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~mhschwei/NCSU_Paleontology/Dr._Schweitzers_Selected_Publications.html
Posted by: Platypus | May 18, 2009 3:55 PM
Why is it that the Mad Science biologists get to have all the fun?
One of my favorite recent quotes (from this comic: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090506 )
"You don't meet many mad social scientists."
Posted by: James F | May 18, 2009 3:56 PM
The Science Pundit #14 wrote:
As Ed Yong explains, there was a paper making that criticism of the T. rex paper by Schweitzer, but her most recent publication - analysis of material from Brachylophosaurus - bolstered the original conclusion.
Posted by: Jack | May 18, 2009 3:58 PM
I haven't read the book yet but I'm glad to hear he tackles some of the ethical issues. Raising a velocirooster or whatever you want to call it whether alone or as a small brood is basically raising a freak or freaks. It hasn't come about as part of an ecosystem. It has no flock. It's without context.
I know we eat chickens and I have no illusions that the chicken brain is much more than a wide spot in the road, but to just treat a living thing that feels pain and knows fear like that without a really really definable benefit might be kind of creepy.
I don't have a very good education as far as genetics, so my question is since genes seem to carry multiple functions or at least manifest multiple results when turned on or off (like fox docility or aggression related to selection for specific fur traits) is there the possibility that tweaking a gene here or there could result in creating an animal that feels immense pain or some other dire consequence.
I'm literally just dumb and curious so take the comment for what it's worth.
Love Pharyngula!
Posted by: Josh
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May 18, 2009 4:05 PM
Right--phylogenetic similarity. Okay, I was just curious if you were thinking about something completely different.
Posted by: Cardinal Shew | May 18, 2009 4:07 PM
Maybe start with an ostrich? That should save a few generations.
Posted by: JoshL | May 18, 2009 4:10 PM
Awesome review.
However Ultra-Mega-Chicken? No! It is forbidden!
http://www.mcpeepants.com/frames/043videoouija/frame25.jpg
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 18, 2009 4:12 PM
Mammoths might be recapitulated using elephants, because we'll probably have their DNA (which isn't everything either, but it sure is a lot). Dinosaurs? Without getting hold of their DNA, evolution might be the only thing that could come close to them again.
actually, this is problematic as well. DNA degrades over time (rapidly enough that even decades can have a significant effect), and even with frozen mammoth tissue, it's likely there will be enough errors to make a proper sequence quite improbable.
How would one be able to figure out which errors need to be corrected to get a proper sequence to match to?
The "chicken with teeth" example was mentioned earlier in the thread, and if one takes a close look at that, you'll see that yes, they have teeth, but it's not like a perfect set.
I would imagine that re-activating the dormant pathway activates many genes that now have significant errors in them.
Posted by: SteveM
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May 18, 2009 4:15 PM
Well, there was just recently on one of the science channels (NatGeo, Science, Discovery Channel, etc.) "How to Build a Dinosaur" which was essentially a promo for the book. In that, Horner actually recommended starting with an emu as probably needing the fewest changes to regress back to something like a velociraptor.
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | May 18, 2009 4:17 PM
The good news is that jumbo drumsticks are on the menu.
The bad news is, they're yours.
Posted by: Isherwood
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May 18, 2009 4:17 PM
I grew up in Bozeman, and it pisses me off to no end that I didn't have a mentor to help me realized the joy of the science and paleontology that was happening in my very town.
This takes it to a whole new level.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2009 4:22 PM
I think Cardinal Shew (#46) has a good point.
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | May 18, 2009 4:24 PM
I grew up in Bozeman, and it pisses me off to no end that I didn't have a mentor to help me realized the joy of the science and paleontology that was happening in my very town
Hey, at least you had the "Pickle Barrel".
Posted by: The Science Pundit
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May 18, 2009 4:29 PM
@ #41 & #43
Thanks! I don't know how I missed that Ed Yong post; I read all his posts.
Posted by: Anri | May 18, 2009 4:30 PM
In Soviet Russia,
CHICKEN NOMS YOU!
Posted by: Greg Peterson | May 18, 2009 4:31 PM
I must be one of few science fanboys that doesn't really care that much about fossils, so I didn't really focus on the early parts of this book, but the later parts are T. Riffic.
I thought that hoatzins were the only birds to have those vestigial clams on their wings when young. Emus look like they're about 20 percent of the way to non-avian dino already, so hell yeah, gear up the underground emo lair and feed our collective Frankenstein.
Posted by: Mark | May 18, 2009 4:32 PM
Laughed my arse off! Beautiful, poetic image of the chicken, leaning in closer, eyes squinting conspiratorily, nodding slightly at each potential buildup. Then dropping int he nest and laying like mad!
Posted by: PsyberDave | May 18, 2009 4:33 PM
PZ, if you ever start another blog, I vote for it to be called pygostyle.
Posted by: BeamStalk | May 18, 2009 4:37 PM
I love Horner. You can definitely tell that he loves what he does. I will have to buy this book now.
Posted by: Greg Peterson | May 18, 2009 4:38 PM
Vestigial CLAMS?! I kill self. I meant CLAWS, of course...and I meant to state clearly that emus do as well. Seems I meaned a lot of things that didn't happen.
Tell me why I don't like Mondays.
Posted by: Newfie
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May 18, 2009 4:41 PM
CLAMS GOT LEGS!!
..and great post, PZ. Put some of that humour into the book.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2009 4:44 PM
Ichthyic's right, too. The more I think about this, the more dubious it seems. (Not having read the book.) Even starting with an ostrich (the extant bird species that retains the most ancestral characteristics, according to recent genetic-phylogeny studies), there is no guarantee that genes that have been switched "off" for a while (like those at the end of cascades producing caudal vertebrae and teeth) are still functional.
And after the teeth and tail and wing-loss and foreclaws, and maybe a nice raptor-claw, what else? Pelvis shape? Brain size? Whatever, at the end of your finite list of characters, you still have a non-avian-dinosaur-like bird in terms of all the other characters (acknowledging possibly massive pleiotropy, etc.).
Again, haven't read the book, but it seems sort of silly. By all means, experiment with genetic switches. It's going to take a lot of "let's see what happens if we do this" before they get to "so by doing this we get the desired result," and a lot will be learned that way. But the payoff comes from messing around with developmental switches, not from trying to rebuild a dinosaur. At best, it's fr*ming.
As for Horner, he's enthusiastic, no doubt, but he's also something of a publicity-hounding ego, and he is not always a careful scientist, at least in his public pronouncements. IMO.
Posted by: JD | May 18, 2009 4:47 PM
I'd like to see some Feagletosh atavisms. Retro-tard characteristics to scare children on Halloween.
Posted by: Masks of Eris | May 18, 2009 4:57 PM
"Extra! Eeeextra! Horner's chickens eat New York! Horner's chickens eat New York! Read all, read all!"
Posted by: Cardinal Shew | May 18, 2009 4:59 PM
I think the number of generation to get anything really resembling a dinosaur would be quite large... but how about just a double sized ostrich with the attitude of a pit bull. Velociraptor, no. Scary, yes.
Posted by: Zarquon | May 18, 2009 4:59 PM
Hey, I saw that episode: Which Came First
Posted by: Kevin Schreck | May 18, 2009 4:59 PM
Looking forward to the book, and even more so to my own pet Dinochicken.
Posted by: JDStackpole | May 18, 2009 5:11 PM
"...and the roar of the dinosaur will be heard once again."
Oh? And whence cometh this assertion that T.Rex had powerful vocal chords?
Granted a clucking or peeping T.Rex isn't very good theater, but still...
Posted by: Tree of Knowledge | May 18, 2009 5:11 PM
Great post. This reminds me of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, where genetics is fun. People grow their own extinct species as pets and do gene splicing at home. The rest of the books are good too--cheese is so delicious it's contraband.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/series/44778/ref=pd_serl_books?ie=UTF8&edition=paperback
Posted by: Paleos | May 18, 2009 5:11 PM
I have been meaning to read this book, I'm glad to find it recommended! My masters thesis is about the Hell Creek area, so I'm glad it's got some of that in it. I'll have to read it now!
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | May 18, 2009 5:19 PM
Though the task is a little complex,
Given time, we can work out the specs--
With the motive and means,
We can juggle the genes:
From a chicken, derive a T-rex!
Though the papers will claim that I'm mad,
There is nothing I've done that's so bad--
This isn't designing,
But merely refining--
I'm giving them back what they had!
Every egg that you've scrambled or fried
Is a dinosaur's sibling that died--
If you've cooked up your dozens,
I'm telling you, cousins,
It's time that you'd best run and hide!
Posted by: littlejohn | May 18, 2009 5:21 PM
Just finished the book myself. Very interesting. But I got the impression Horner was hinting repeatedly that he wants people/institutions to give him money for his project.
And no, back-engineering a dinosaur will not shut creationists up. Nothing will.
Posted by: blindpig | May 18, 2009 5:25 PM
I think that if something like this were to be attempted, it would be better to try to resurrect the mammoth and mastodon. These were part of the ecology in the relatively recent past and viable wild populations would not be out of the question. Any avian derived psudosaur would have to be a close confined show freak, but to see a wild herd of mastodon in Yellowstone, where they were part of the ecology as recently as 15,000 years ago, would be awesome. Since their extinction was probably driven in the most part by human predation, we would only be restoring what we ourselves had destroyed
Posted by: Sharon C | May 18, 2009 5:32 PM
MScott @ #6
Hans Larsson at McGill University ("Walking with Dinosaurs" maybe?) has increased the number of vertebrae retained in the embryonic tail - but IIRC he did it by adding beads coated with whatever relevant protein to the tail - which is sort of different from actually changing the developmental pathways.
At least, I think that's how it went.
Posted by: Libbie | May 18, 2009 5:36 PM
Your dream is a glorious one, PZ, but the kids in their suburban garages will need to get their hands on freshly laid, fertile chicken eggs that have not dropped in temperature below about 60 F.
Still, it's not impossible.
I look forward to when Mad Ornithological Scientists will try this experiment with ground hornbill embryos. Ground hornbills are already about as close to living dinosaurs as you can find. Adding long tails and teeth and clawed forelimbs will only make them EVEN MORE TERRIFYING!!
Posted by: Junco | May 18, 2009 5:46 PM
All my chickens go to eleven. Awesome.
Posted by: Newfie
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May 18, 2009 5:56 PM
They are beautiful. Look at the eyelashes.
Posted by: Newfie
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May 18, 2009 5:58 PM
And the skin on their face has texture that looks like a hand or footprint.
Posted by: AdamK | May 18, 2009 6:02 PM
I wonder what sort of freakish, mad, twisted horror-from-beyond-time you could churn out if you started twiddling around with squid genes?
Posted by: AdamK | May 18, 2009 6:06 PM
And when do I get my big red long-eared domesticated lynx?
Posted by: Meursault Lives! | May 18, 2009 6:11 PM
...But these go to 11...
[/British]
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | May 18, 2009 6:18 PM
Turning a chicken into a T. rex is a true Mad Scientist project, and one that I must applaud.
Can't wait to see what Casey Luskin &/or Bill Donohue will do with this startling confession.
... the roar of the dinosaur will be heard once again.
As JDStackpole notes in # 68, dino talk (which apparently failed to fossilize very well) may not have been limited to macho mouthings. Perhaps, as good avian ancestors, they made the primeval forests resonate with songs so melodic that mockingbirds and nightingales would be silenced with envy.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | May 18, 2009 6:20 PM
Too cool too be troo. grumble
Given sufficient understanding and technique, I'm sure that a bird genome could be reverted and old traits brought to light, but I doubt a T. Rex or any other known dinosaur would be the result. I would expect an entirely new critter, a brand new dinosaur.
Let's do it. And don't forget, it will need a name ----
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | May 18, 2009 6:30 PM
--Amancay ,#12We raised chickens for eggs and food when I was a kid. We also referred to the vestigial tail as "the Pope's nose." If was funny before I knew anything about the Pope except his funny suits.
We also called it a toot' kit. That's phonetic spelling; never saw it in print that I recall. The word may be French Canadian as we raised the chickens in New Hampshire.
Dad just called it the part that goes over the fence last.
Posted by: MadScientist
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May 18, 2009 6:36 PM
Awesome. :) I want a chicken with a long tail - and I don't mean long feathers like the peacock. What was that mythical bird that would sing and put people to sleep?
I can just imagine a kid showing his school buddies: ... and this is the chicken coop - where dad keeps his velociraptors.
I see no ethical concerns - it's not as if a diddled chicken will turn human or super-intelligent, and unlike Gamera I guarantee guns will kill dinosaurs.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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May 18, 2009 6:50 PM
No need to run and hide,
We have Cuttlefish on our side.
(There goes my yearly allotment of poesy.)
I agree with Sven and Ichthyic. Even if the genes can be turned back on, a certain amount of degradation of the genome has occurred, so the results may not be quite what was expected. Still, the idea...
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | May 18, 2009 7:02 PM
Let's do it. And don't forget, it will need a name ----
Stomp-a-saurus!
Artist’s Conception
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | May 18, 2009 7:20 PM
Lurker! The Giant Claw!! I'm a child again.
*no, not Craw, Craw. Craw!*
Posted by: Ragutis | May 18, 2009 7:39 PM
Orthoceras would be pretty cool to aim for. Shame they only grew to a couple of feet long. Might have to add a splash of Architeuthis.
Posted by: stompsfrogs | May 18, 2009 7:39 PM
You know, it's funny how when you learn a word then you see it everywhere? I just learned the word "concatenate" this very month and now my fav blogger uses it.
If this unholy coinkidink is possible, clearly devolving a chicken into a T-Rex is possible.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | May 18, 2009 8:16 PM
...Yeah, but without enamel. Two of the genes for that are FUBAR ( = pseudogenes) (...the R is for "repair", not quite for "recognition"), and the other two apparently got lost in some chromosomal rearrangement or other.
I have to check, but it's got a fairly long branch in those studies...
Posted by: amphiox | May 18, 2009 8:47 PM
#65 "how about just a double sized ostrich with the attitude of a pit bull"
Nature's already done it. Twice. Gastornis and Titanis. Two different times, two different lineages, similar result of a lineage of birds evolving back into a theropod niche. Big size, powerful killing head/jaw, fast bipedal running, etc.
Interestingly, in neither case were there atavistic teeth or tails, though you'd think atavastic teeth at least would have been pretty helpful (tail too, for balance and turning).
(And I think there are several other families of suspected giant killer birds out there, though these may be controversial.)
Posted by: Marie the Bookwyrm | May 18, 2009 8:54 PM
I have a vague memory of a movie titled "Carnosaur", in which somebody did some genetic tinkering on some chickens so they laid eggs that hatched out quickly growing (and meat eating) dinosaurs. Needless to say, they soon started munching the local humans. :)
Posted by: Ranger_Rick
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May 18, 2009 9:06 PM
PZ, you're delightfully wicked!
Posted by: donna | May 18, 2009 9:39 PM
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. ~C.S. Lewis
Posted by: John Scanlon FCD | May 18, 2009 10:28 PM
Pygostyle: This dinosaur tail article is a stub.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | May 18, 2009 10:40 PM
David M.:
Hackett, S. J., et al. 2008. A phylogenomic study of birds reveals their evolutionary history. Science 320: 1763-1768.
Harshman, J. et al. Phylogenomic evidence for multiple losses of flight in ratite birds. PNAS September 9, 2008 vol. 105 no. 36 13462-13467
but yeah, they're long branches, by the very nature of the question.
Posted by: tresmal | May 19, 2009 12:07 AM
"And don't forget it will need a name"
Galliraptor.
Posted by: cmflyer | May 19, 2009 12:08 AM
Take a look at what JF Sebastian created for hobby in Blade Runner. It's creepy once you get it. I don't know if that's what every kid needs!
Posted by: Valor Phoenix | May 19, 2009 12:47 AM
I saw that show on Nat Geo, had horner in the middle of an Emu herd going, "Look at these, they're almost raptors already." They also covered the T-rex bone tissue recovered and how they weren't sure if it was actual tissue.
Then they cover the chicken embryos in the lab, showing that they already know the chemical part of the development switches for getting teeth buds and a longer tail.
After seeing the flying-squirrelish microraptor in another show of theirs in computer animation, I think they'll come up with something interesting.
Of course, like any good trip, getting their is the fun part. Actively reverse-engineering biology and creating an dinosaur type form just gives it a fun goal to acquiring the knowledge.
You can tell the average person about evo-devo all day long, but show them a neon glow-in-the-dark gold fish or a feathered microraptor and that really says something most anyone can understand.
Posted by: Ben | May 19, 2009 1:05 AM
Best. Post. Ever.
Money quote:
"slider... turn it up to 11"
Fred, where's your pet chicken?
Sorry, maw, I turned it up to 11 with my handy-dandy Spinal-Tap brand BioShock Kit. It's out rampaging in the south 40. It already ate yer cow.
Posted by: arachnophilia
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May 19, 2009 3:38 AM
#74: that's just what i came here to post. scientists have been able to grow chickens with long bony tails in the lab, but not quite through the genetic tinkering process described above.
and no, nothing will shut up the "birds aren't dinosaurs" crowd. it's like a microcosm of the evolution "debate" a small group of deniers vs a completely established and supported might-as-well-be-called-fact. one more little piece of evidence will not convince them, not when they deny all of the evidence that exists currently. making a dinosaur out of a bird won't show them anything -- because, you see, birds are already dinosaurs. they're already ignoring the obvious morphological similarities, supposing a miraculous degree of convergence. why would tails and scales help? they'll just say it's some kind of upright lizard that looks like a dinosaur in every way, but isn't.
Posted by: Samantha Vimes | May 19, 2009 4:45 AM
Frankly, I've known quite a few chickens that did not understand they were not already 40 feet tall and capable of killing large mammals.
There's a reason aggressive short men are said to have "bantam rooster syndrome".
There's no need to reverse-engineer the attitude. Inside chickens, ostriches, and I'm sure other birds, the heart of the carnivore-saur still beats.
Posted by: johannes | May 19, 2009 5:13 AM
# 92,
*Titanis* was by no means the only phorusrhacid, and it wasn't the biggest one, either, that title goes to *Kelenken* from Patagonia. It is, however, the only one that had been found in NA - the other phorusrhacids come from SA and Antarctica.
*Gastornis*, as you have correctly remarked, is not a phorusrhacid at all, but belongs to another clade, the galloanserae. The question wether gastornithids were predators like the phorusrhacids or plant eaters like their anserid cousins, the Australin mihirungs, is still hotly debated - allthough the debate may be somewhat pointless; perhaps an animal as large and strong as *Gastornis* simply ate anything it wanted?
Posted by: James Sweet | May 19, 2009 8:40 AM
Uh oh, PZ is being glib about the ethics of consuming chicken embryos. He must be a RAPE APOLOGIST.
Posted by: Blondin | May 19, 2009 9:06 AM
If Chuck Jones were still alive he could start a cartoon series about a roadrunner that perpetually (and unsuccessfully) pursues a coyote.
Posted by: Blondin | May 19, 2009 9:11 AM
By coincidence Quirks & Quarks did a segment about Mary Schweitzer last weekend:
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/08-09/qq-2009-05-16.html
Posted by: Victor
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May 19, 2009 9:32 AM
So, if we start with a chicken and make a dinosaur ... will we soon be able to buy dinosaur soup stock? Dinosaur Ala King?
Posted by: Bexley | May 19, 2009 11:16 AM
I was sure Armand Marie Leroi mentioned that some guys got chicken to grow teeth in his book "Mutants". A quick google search threw this up:
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/hens_teeth_not_so_rare_after_all_10081.html
Looks like the first steps on the project have already been taken.
Posted by: Patricia, OM
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May 19, 2009 11:26 AM
I agree with Samantha in #103.
You need do nothing more to a chicken but make it eight feet tall and you'll have all the dinosaur you want.
Good to see you again Cuttlefish!
Posted by: uncle frogy | May 19, 2009 12:35 PM
if it is possible it will be done. That some one will have to try is a sure thing.
The science fiction "intelligent aliens" will be man made?
We already have a big problem with "introduced exotic species" all over the world how would this affect
that.
I remember reading about customized pets in a science fiction novel is that in the future also?
Posted by: ThirtyFiveUp | May 19, 2009 12:37 PM
Cuttlefish, Yeah.
Posted by: meh1963 | May 19, 2009 12:48 PM
Rather than starting with a chicken, why not start with a Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) - it looks half a dinosaur already, and has claws resembling raptor claws.
From Wikipedia: "he second toe, the inner one in the medial position, sports a dagger-like claw that is 125 millimetres (4.9 in) long[6]. This claw is particularly fearsome since cassowaries sometimes kick humans and animals with their enormously powerful legs (see Cassowary Attacks, below)"
(the article goes on to note that the reputation for attacking and disemboweling humans may not be reliable. Still, kind of cool).
Posted by: dahduh | May 19, 2009 3:22 PM
I wonder, is the information required to build a dinosaur not present in the existing spectrum of living descendants? Suppose one could sequence the the DNA sequences of all of the species descended from T Rex. By comparing the sequences and one might be able to figure out all the mutations to the original sequence, and so re-construct the original DNA.
Then you'd have to find an egg big enough to put it in.
Posted by: CJO | May 19, 2009 3:42 PM
Suppose one could sequence the the DNA sequences of all of the species descended from T Rex.
No such animal.
Figure the entire avian clade has an LCA among the dinosaurs. One species, unknown, but known not to be T. Rex. The vast majority of dinosaur lineages, that is, all but one, are truly extinct, and have no descendents.
(I'm going by logic here and not detailed knowledge, but this is correct, right? All other reptillian lineages --snakes, lizards, crocodillians, and turtles-- are distinct from the dino clade, yes? And the LCA of the mammal clade predates the dinosaurs?)
Posted by: kate | May 19, 2009 3:43 PM
one problem with your chicken embryo/ McDonalds comparison. The eggs used at McDonalds (and consumed) are not fertilized. Commercial laying hens aren't exposed to roosters. They aren't an embryo, there is no potential for them to ever grow into a chick.
Not that I have a problem with using actual chicken embryos, but the common belief of the general public that eggs "could have turned into chicks" fuels obnoxious animal rights groups like PETA.
Posted by: Blurb | May 19, 2009 3:58 PM
Unfortunately even with ALL the science and money in the world, our oxygen levels are minute compared to where they were back in the dino-days, so it just can't happen! We have less than a tenth of the levels of back then, the high o2 levels are what allowed them to get so big and stay that way until the levels fell drastically after the _______ (insert appropriate disaster here).
Posted by: brett coster | May 19, 2009 5:05 PM
It's alright for you in the northern hemisphere to blithely talk about building tyranno-chooks, but you don't know what it's like living with the things. We in Oz already do.
Generations of Melburnians have been scarred for life by the emus at Healeville Sanctuary, and you want to give them teeth?
Even our tourist videos have to give you fair warning: it's not for nothing that the final shot is of an emu.
And as for meh1963 suggesting using the Cassowary as a starting point: that bird is already a humocidal emu on steroids.
Would be fun,but.
Posted by: BK | May 19, 2009 5:23 PM
I thought an iguana's closest relative was a chicken, so couldn't we skip a few steps and start with an iguana instead? On the other hand, my ig at home already thinks he's a huge mighty dinosaur, so he would probably tell me that we don't need any more. He's never dealt very well with competition. Besides, what do we do if we end up with a dinosaur that wants to mate as much as my ig did? I really don't want to deal with something 10 stories tall trying to hump my leg. :-) gaaaccckkkk!!!!!
Posted by: meh1963 | May 19, 2009 6:48 PM
And as for meh1963 suggesting using the Cassowary as a starting point: that bird is already a humocidal emu on steroids.
They certainly *look* dangerous, if the one at San Francisco Zoo is any indication - it's big, and the claws are formidable-looking. It seems pretty placid, though I suppose that might change if humans were in the enclosure with it.
Does humocidal=='homicidal' restricted to homo sapiens? ;-)
-Matt
Posted by: brett coster | May 19, 2009 7:09 PM
Matt: Does humocidal=='homicidal' restricted to homo sapiens? ;-)
That's my understanding of the word! Living on this continent, it's often the most correct description of the local flora and fauna.
Posted by: meh1963 | May 19, 2009 11:54 PM
That's brilliant...I thought the US deserts had some nasty fauna, but Oz cured me of that delusion.
(as did the coconut crabs on Vanuatu....)
Posted by: amphiox | May 20, 2009 3:04 AM
#119: Iguanas are not archosaurs and are most closely related to other lizards and snakes.
#104: Yep. Kelenken is one impressive bird.
#115: I'm not sure the LCA of the mammals predates the dinosaurs or not, as the two groups appeared at roughly the same time in the fossil record(late triassic?), unless by "mammal clade" you include all the therapsids. Certainly the LCA of all living mammals must have lived well after the first dinos.
Posted by: johannes | May 20, 2009 6:09 AM
# 115 # 123
if by "mammal" you mean crown group mammals, as your use of the term "LCA", usually associated with crown group concepts, suggests, then the LCA must indeed have lived after the first dinosaurs. If you use a stem-group concept of mammals, and consider, for example, *Morganucodon* (mammaliform, but not in the crown-group) a mammal, mammals and dinosaurs do indeed appear roughly at the same time in the late Triassic, but in this case, the term "LCA" makes little sense.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | May 20, 2009 10:13 AM
OK, I haven't read the book, and I don't know enough about evolution or genetics to really grok the process here, but is it limited to "recalling" features of evolutionary predecessors, or could these techniques be used to generate creatures that had never lived?
If the latter... I CAN HAZ PIERSON'S PUPPETEER? (image)
Posted by: Jason Li | May 20, 2009 11:17 PM
Just like any other fundamentalist attempts of reviving relics of a bygone era, you would not recreate something in the past, but a brand new bigger and scarier creature.