Scientist says path to living dinosaurs starts with chickens

By Ricardo Fjelstad de Santiago and Ricardo Fjelstad de Santiago of Highland Park Senior High

John "Jack" Horner is a professor at Montana University and a nationally recognized paleontologist who has made many important discoveries about dinosaurs. He's trying to make the next one by proving dinosaurs are the ancestors of birds by finding evidence in chicken DNA. Photo Courtesy of Jack Horner

Horner details his experiment in his latest book, "How to Build a Dinosaur." Photo courtesy of Jack Horner

"Birds are already dinosaurs. Chickens and dinosaurs have many similar characteristics. There have been baby dinosaurs preserved in nests like birds with the mother nearby." -- Jack Horner

What came first the chicken or the egg? Neither, according to scientists. It could be dinosaurs came first.

Paleontologist John “Jack” Horner – the scientist who acted as a technical advisor on the “Jurassic Park” movies — is trying to prove chickens evolved from dinosaurs by reactivating dormant genes in chickens that would produce a long tail, no feathers and teeth. In other words, a “dino-chicken.”

Horner, a professor at Montana University and nationally recognized paleontologist, believes that because chickens still have these genes, it indicates that birds are modern dinosaurs.

Chickens, and birds in general, are very similar in bone structure with dinosaurs.

This far-fetched idea has many skeptics saying it’s too much like science fiction, but according to Horner, the past is coming soon to a future near you.

The man behind the “dino-chicken”

Horner has always had a passion for dinosaurs and fossils. Ever since he was child he always wanted to do something with the ancient mammals. For those who once thought dinosaurs were reptiles, think again. Horner, along with other scientists are now saying dinosaurs were warm-blooded creatures.

“I was born to be a paleontologist,” Horner said.

His mother was supportive of him wanting to find fossils while his father would’ve rather had him “diggin’ up gold,” he said.

Years later, he followed his dream by forming an excavating team that, while excavating at a site called Hell Creek in Montana, dug up fossils of many dinosaurs. They even found dinosaur nests with the eggs and mother nearby.

Not only did Horner discover remains, along with Biologist Mary Schweitzer he found the first ever blood vessel in a fossil named “B-rex.”

The science behind the “dino-chicken”

This was a major step toward bringing back dinosaurs one day since the blood vessels found were still in tact and contained DNA. DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is like a genetic instruction manual for life forms.

While working on the “Jurassic Park” sets, seeing animatronic dinosaurs only furthered Horner’s desire to create a living, breathing one. But the road to hatching a dinosaur is a long, bumpy and interesting one. And it all starts with a chicken egg.

Horner’s experiment starts with finding the gene that stops the chicken tail from growing into the little stub it is today. In the embryo stage, chickens develop a tail, but there’s a gene that activates that makes it disappear. What Jack and his partners are doing in the lab is trying to discover that gene and stop it.

“Birds are already dinosaurs. Chickens and dinosaurs have many similar characteristics. There have been baby dinosaurs preserved in nests like birds with the mother nearby,” Horner said. “Evidence of gigantic groups of dinosaur fossils showed they migrated like flocks of birds.”

Horner said adult dinosaurs were able to recognize their children, since they were very social animals and much more intelligent than we presumed. They communicated with one another just like other species.

Chickens and dinosaurs have a very similar bone structure. Both have longer necks, stand upright and walk in a similar fashion. Millions of years of evolution got rid of the dinosaur’s arms and instead developed the mouth watering “chicken wings” we love today.

Expect “dino-chicken” by end of decade

Lets just hope that one day we don’t become the prey of “dino-chickens.”

Although Horner isn’t creating a full-blown dinosaur just yet, he is sure that a “dino-chicken” will be created by the end of this decade.

This probably sounds like a science fiction movie about to go bad. When asked what if the “dino-chicken” will run wild and create havoc, Horner said: “We could only make one at a time.

“In order to make a whole population of dino-chickens, you would have to completely change their DNA. We are just clipping and flipping a few genes around,” Horner said.

Horner hopes his experiments help people understand how evolution works. “Birds are living dinosaurs. And, once we figure out how to turn genes off and on, we can solve other things like genetic diseases in humans,” he said.

Although having a miniature pet dinosaur sounds awesome, that will have to wait. We’ll just have to see how Horner’s experiment turns out.

Image of rooster used in home page graphic provided by Muhammad Mahdi Karim through Wikimedia Commons.