Jurassic World (a little bit) in real life: Dino chickens in the making

Since then, scientists have been trying to use a type of gene Reverse Engineering Activation of dormant dinosaur traits in chicken DNA, sometimes successfully. Harvard researchers learned about a chicken’s beak in 2015 In the beak of the dinosaur For a change, Chilean scientists gave a chicken a year later with a longer sliver like grandparents.

Horner focused on the tail. About 130 million years ago, the long tail in some species suddenly changed to a short one. Dana Rashid of Montana State University, research leader for the DinoChicken Project, stresses that the goal is not to replicate a dinosaur. “When journalists call us, they want to hear that we’re hatching little T-Rexes. But that’s not how science works. We’re not copying a dinosaur, we’re trying to determine how birds changed their ancestors.”

Meanwhile, the chickens were able to hatch with tail vertebrae that are similar in structure to those of their distant ancestors (although their tails are still as short as that of a regular chicken). Through accidental discoveries aiding research into human disorders such as Bechterew’s disease, an inflammation of the joints of the spine. The same processes play a role as in the formation of the tail of the dinosaur.

Frankenstein

These are interesting developments, according to paleontologist Schulp. “For example, with this tail, there’s not a complete set in your DNA for every vertebra. You have a recipe for how to build a vertebra and a number of stimuli that say make another vertebra, and another, and another. These are the Hox genes, and these researchers are working on that. A little bit. It’s of course interesting to understand how those regulating genes work.”