Aug 26 2009I Love Science: Scientist Plan to 'Reverse-Engineer' Dinosaurs From Modern Chickens
In the best news I've heard in a while, a scientist at McGill University in Montreal (I love you, Canada) is attempting to reverse engineer a dinosaur from a chicken "by altering chicken genes known to have evolved since the Cretaceous."
Needless to say, there are many problems with the very concept of making a dinosaur out of a chicken. For one, dinosaurs, as a group, are defined by only a few characteristics: a hole in their hip socket, some limb bone flanges, and other minor anatomical features. Changing chicken DNA won't produce those traits, because chickens already have them. A chicken, like all birds, is already a dinosaur. Getting rid of its feathers or giving it teeth won't make it more of a dinosaur than it already is.
What in the -- chickens ARE dinosaurs? To the colonel's farm, STAT -- I'm gonna roll myself in corn and die happy!
Scientist Vows To Reverse-Engineer Dinosaur From Chicken [popsci]
Thanks to James, Alexander the Viking, Mr. Robbot, Adam, Dustin, Erik, Myriapode, Tigerh8r, Pepe la PEWPEW, Dominik and Caroline, who will never look at a drumstick the same.
Related Stories
It's About Time!: A Dinosaur Serving Spoon (09/30/2009)
Dinosaur Video Reminds Me Of Budweiser Ad (06/18/2009)
Yes...YES!: Tyrannosaurs Doing It Dino-style (11/13/2009)
Huge Cache Of Dinosaurs Eggs Found In India (10/01/2009)
Reader Comments
1. fred - August 26, 2009 11:37 AM
sweet
2. Daisy - August 26, 2009 11:40 AM
FAKE!!!!
This is a complete photoshop job. You can tell its a fake because the shadow's are all wrong.
This is exactly like that scene in the movie NEver BAck Down where Max was telling Baja about a liver he at with farva beans and a nice chianti.
3. GoSS Jerk - August 26, 2009 11:45 AM
If they change the beak into a toothless mouth with Angelina jo's lips... I'd marry that dino in a heart beat !
4. ME AGAIN - August 26, 2009 11:46 AM
I pointed this out to you about two months ago. You're late.
5. hollywood_hillbilly - August 26, 2009 11:47 AM
THIS IS GAME!
6. Pedo Pedro - August 26, 2009 11:49 AM
nice drawing
7. PEPE la PEWPEW - August 26, 2009 11:49 AM
Im having dinowings and beer tonight !! or in few years .. game day will never be the same
8. RAWR - August 26, 2009 11:57 AM
@3
I found a picture of what that dinosaur would look like!
http://tinyurl.com/mo73mt
9. Fade - August 26, 2009 11:59 AM
I always new something was wrong with chickens....
http://fade-to-extra.mybrute.com
10. Mr. cow - August 26, 2009 12:01 PM
Moo
11. Johnny B - August 26, 2009 12:01 PM
CLUCK CLUCK!
Dinos for a buck!
12. GoSS Jerk - August 26, 2009 12:03 PM
@ 8
Cant see it, i'll take a look when i leave work!
FIREWALLS, MAY YOU ROT IN HELL WITH FIRSTARDS,BRUTEFAGS RDA and his clones!!!
13. GoSS Jerk - August 26, 2009 12:04 PM
I sincearly apologize, i completely omited BathCaptain from post 12, right between Firstards and Brutefags.
14. Bruno - August 26, 2009 12:09 PM
Oh shit, I live in Montreal. I'll be the among the first humans to die from being killed by dinosaurs...
Seriously, this is scary news... They'll create... monsters...
15. awesomeness in a bottle - August 26, 2009 12:12 PM
@2, you are a total failure. on the other hand, GO MONTREAL, my hometown
16. STUPOR - August 26, 2009 12:12 PM
@8
holy crap, that is FTMW!!! Nicely done!
17. Leonidas - August 26, 2009 12:12 PM
But… do they have large talons?
18. Zoe Necrosis - August 26, 2009 12:24 PM
So what you're saying is... Dinosaurs are delicious?
19. nadalo日本にいます。MUSIC IS MY BITCH - August 26, 2009 12:25 PM
hmmm...sounds like a half ass way approach to reverse engineer a dino...it would probably end up a freak that no one loves and kills itself by jumping off a cliff....do it right man...
20. Blastphemer - August 26, 2009 12:30 PM
Yeah...but what will they taste like?
21. photoshop-police - August 26, 2009 12:32 PM
Didn't you freaks see the Jurassic Park movies?
Just because you're using bird DNA doesn't mean it's gonna end any better than the frog DNA!
Just say NO to Kentucky Fried Dino!
22. RAWR - August 26, 2009 12:36 PM
reminds me of that sex scene in Jurrasic Park..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX4PGhGLQjM
23. Gargamel - August 26, 2009 12:39 PM
So, would this taste like chicken, or taste like dinosaur? Delicious either way, just askin.
24. Madgame - August 26, 2009 12:56 PM
yeah but chickens don't really fit the definition of dinosaur (terrible, monstrous, etc) and neither do birds
25. Milkman - August 26, 2009 12:57 PM
I saw this news months ago... still very cool. I wonder if there are any updates! Can we keep dinosaurs as pets? Will they shit everywhere if we put them on our shoulder? Kinda like pirates, but with dinos instead of parrots. RARRRRR
26. Pat - August 26, 2009 1:09 PM
@Daisy
That picture's the best photoshop job I've seen all day!
27. J-red - August 26, 2009 2:12 PM
Only a few anatomical qualities? Like the bone structure of a bird i mean reptile i mean holy crap!!!! there's therapods, like the t-rex(which could never have evolved from possible apex predator to possible apex food source.... That's not really an evolutionary improvement, is it?) which have 'bird-like hips' (which don't lie, apparently) and then sauropods like littlefoot which have 'reptile-like hips'. So somebody is wrong about something, for sure. I feel that this difference within dinosaurs is strong evidence to suggest that either therapods aren't dinosaurs or birds aren't dinosaurs. Either way, Life will find a way.... To nom
28. bound_phoenix - August 26, 2009 2:36 PM
COCK-A-SORE-ASS REX ,,,,,,
29. Jaded Icon - August 26, 2009 2:43 PM
Happy news for GW!
30. $.02 and a pocket full of FAH-Q - August 26, 2009 3:14 PM
CluckCluckRAWR! McNugget this bitches!
31. fr3kazoid - August 26, 2009 3:43 PM
Ahhhh... tax dollars hard at work.
32. Jeremy - August 26, 2009 4:01 PM
The Oregon State University has released a recent study that proves that dinosaurs could not have evolved into birds, so the whole premise is flawed. Its a huge waste of time.
33. David - August 26, 2009 4:33 PM
Isn't this old news? Like...really old news?
34. Adam - August 26, 2009 4:37 PM
This was the basis of that movie Carnosaur.
35. Alex - August 26, 2009 4:45 PM
@ Jeremy
Actually, the researchers at Oregon State only discovered a reptile- which was not a dinosaur- with feathers. Their hypothesis wasn't "dinosaurs could not have evolved from birds", it simply called the linear evolution from dinosaur to bird into question. They proved a point already well known to palentologists, that evolution doesn't move in a straight line. Birds most likely (with overwhelming evidence) evolved from dinosaurs. Their DNA proves it.
Good sir, YOUR COMMENT IS FLAWED!
36. Alex - August 26, 2009 5:40 PM
@ Jeremy
TOTALLY PWNED! Everybody t-bag him.
37. That one guy - August 26, 2009 6:54 PM
OK, i'm startin to buy into the 2012 apocolypse, and geekologie is the cause. I miss my ignorant bliss. Everyday I read gw's posts about genetic engineering, robotic advancements, and bacon sunglasses; now i know we're doomed. Thanks GW.
38. Graf Zeppelin - August 27, 2009 3:04 AM
I love Daisy.
39. squeehunter - August 27, 2009 7:53 AM
@36 How does their DNA prove it if we don't have any dino DNA? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't know how you'd tell. I mean, a gallimimus skeleton looks a lot like an ostrich skeleton.
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/dees/courses/v1001/images/gallimimus.gif
http://sciencenotes.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/ncmuseum-18-01-08_cellar-ostrich-med.jpg
40. Alex - August 27, 2009 10:41 AM
@squeehunter
?!?!?! Lol wut?
I agree, a gallimimus does look like an ostrich because they are related. Dinosaurs and birds are most likely related (I'd put the number at 95-99% sure, which is good enough for me to say with some certainty).
BTW- We have dino DNA. We've been grinding dinosaur bones for decades to extract it. You only get incomplete sequences, so we can't go Jurassic Park yet, but there are striking similarities between the incomplete DNA and modern bird DNA. I think that you didn't read the comment that superseded mine. Someone tried to use a study from Oregon State to say that dinosaurs didn't evolve from birds, which I clarified.
41. Geekogee - August 30, 2009 5:04 AM
Must See!!!
http://alturl.com/obg7
________________
42. DCMikeRotch - September 4, 2009 7:35 PM
I want to see one of those f***ers fried up at KFC within 5 years. And one live one on a chain outside to maul the PETA protesters.