Mixing chickens 'n dinosuars

[pendell]

Call 'em ... Chickosaurs (http://www.livescience.com/50802-chicken-embryos-with-dinosaur-snouts-created.html)?

Interesting, but I'm not sure exactly where the application is. Create a super species that generates a lot more meat? Or breeding velociraptors to fight the zombie menace?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Yora]

"Mostly, though, we were interested in the evolution of the beak, and not in hatching a 'dino-chicken' just for the sake of it."

"Mostly..."

[TheOctopus]

"Mostly..."

I call shenanigans.

[Kalmageddon]

It would be so cool if we managed to reverse-engineer dinosaurs from chickens and other birds...

[Feddlefew]

It would be so cool if we managed to reverse-engineer dinosaurs from chickens and other birds...

Well, they are basically toothless, fingerless, stubby-tailed and beaked dinosaurs. They're warm blooded, have feathers, lay eggs, and some can still chase a full grown man down and eviscerate them with a single kick.

[Kalmageddon]

Well, they are basically toothless, fingerless, stubby-tailed and beaked dinosaurs. They're warm blooded, have feathers, lay eggs, and some can still chase a full grown man down and eviscerate them with a single kick.

Right, so give them back their fingers, teeth, tail and remove the beak and we got a deal! :smalltongue:
Can't be that hard, can it?

[cobaltstarfire]

Call 'em ... Chickosaurs (http://www.livescience.com/50802-chicken-embryos-with-dinosaur-snouts-created.html)?

Interesting, but I'm not sure exactly where the application is.


This is really neat.

I think most applications would be pretty scholarly in nature, the type of information they're getting from this strikes me as the sort of stuff that would be used to help understand how different animals related, or how they grow and mature and stuff like that.

Maybe it could be useful to improve treatment for growth defects like cleft pallet somewhere down the line? Would be cool if the research also opened doors for better ways to help humans with repairing/replacing damaged/malformed teeth and such.

[Bulldog Psion]

That is really interesting. Weird, but interesting.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Triceratops and their kin had beaks anyway, so its not like removing a beak from a bird has any effect on their dinosaur-ness. Beaks are one of those things that evolved multiple times.

Call me when the make a beakless platypus.

[Joran]

It would be so cool if we managed to reverse-engineer dinosaurs from chickens and other birds...

Jack Horner is on the case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QVXdEOiCw8

[Solaris]

This is really neat.

I think most applications would be pretty scholarly in nature, the type of information they're getting from this strikes me as the sort of stuff that would be used to help understand how different animals related, or how they grow and mature and stuff like that.

Maybe it could be useful to improve treatment for growth defects like cleft pallet somewhere down the line? Would be cool if the research also opened doors for better ways to help humans with repairing/replacing damaged/malformed teeth and such.

Hox genes and similar regulatory genes are seeming like they're the next big thing in genetic experimentation and research. They're concerned with the macroscopic scale, which means they can produce much more dramatic results than the usual microscopic results you get from most genetic engineering.

[Chronos]

Quoth Closet_Skeleton:

Triceratops and their kin had beaks anyway, so its not like removing a beak from a bird has any effect on their dinosaur-ness.
And chickens are more closely related to T. rex than either of them is to a triceratops.

[Seruvius]

Well speaking as a genetics gent, this is definitely interesting. The difference between this and reverse-engineering a dinosaur and getting it on like in Jurassic Park/World is a pretty big difference though. I found the paper and had a quick read of it. They basically found 2 pathways present in bird beak formation that are not present in reptile face formation. They then inhibited (i.e. turned of) some of the major genes in the bird species. In both cases they got beak/face characteristics that looked more like the fossil faces -> in the case of the chicken the face of a dinosaur. While it lets us understand a bit better what the structure of a dino's "beak" might have been like, we are sadly not any closer to opening Jurassic world :smallfrown:

[Grim Portent]

Well speaking as a genetics gent, this is definitely interesting. The difference between this and reverse-engineering a dinosaur and getting it on like in Jurassic Park/World is a pretty big difference though. I found the paper and had a quick read of it. They basically found 2 pathways present in bird beak formation that are not present in reptile face formation. They then inhibited (i.e. turned of) some of the major genes in the bird species. In both cases they got beak/face characteristics that looked more like the fossil faces -> in the case of the chicken the face of a dinosaur. While it lets us understand a bit better what the structure of a dino's "beak" might have been like, we are sadly not any closer to opening Jurassic world :smallfrown:

Were it not for ethical committees and the regulations on genetic science we could engage in mass experiments to learn what genes to suppress to lead to more of the old reptilian features to be expressed and attempt to selectively breed GM-chickens to be more dinosaur like, they have a really fast breeding rate so with strict enough criteria it would theoretically be possible to breed faux-dinosaurs in a relatively short span of years.

Then Jurassic Park could be opened, it would only have one exhibit: inbred mutant raptor-hens half the height of a human shin and with severe deformities and behavioral problems, but you can't make an omelette without creating a few abominations of science that live in permanent agony I always say.

[Closet_Skeleton]

If you can do it to a chicken you can do it to a Cassowary.