CAN: Scientist aims to turn chickens into dinosaurs
Wed Aug 26 04:52:40 EST 2009
Tue Aug 25 18:52:40 UTC 2009
MONTREAL, Aug 25 AFP - After years spent hunting for the buried remains of prehistoric animals, a Canadian palaeontologist now plans to manipulate chicken embryos to show he can create a dinosaur.
Hans Larsson, a researcher 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.
Although 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 past 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.
The idea for the project, Larsson said, came about during discussions with renowned American palaeontologist Jack Horner, who served as technical adviser for the Jurassic Park films.
Horner recently wrote a book titled How to Build A Dinosaur, in which he refers to the embryo experiment as part of a quest to create a "chickenosaurus".
Larsson's team has previously worked to uncover prehistoric animal remains, including eight unknown species of dinosaurs and five new types of crocodile in Niger. He also recently uncovered the remains of a new carnivorous dinosaur in Argentina.
