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'Dinochicken' Scheme Puts Evolution in Reverse

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

By bringing back a tail to a chicken, Laarson and his colleagues will promote growth of the spinal cord. In the future, Horner believes this work could lead to medical advancements that will benefit humans.

"The growth of the tail is tied to the growth of the spinal cord, and spinal cord birth defects in humans are a major medical problem," he explained. "Learning more about what prompts and stops tail growth could give us important insights about serious human birth defects."

Other medical breakthroughs could also occur, he said, since "genomes made of genes made of switches" function similarly in all animals, including humans.

There is no danger of the proposed dinochicken escaping and populating the world with dinosaurs, Horner said, since only the chicken's development, and not its genome, would have been affected. If the creature did somehow escape and could mate, the result would just be a regular chicken.

If a chicken embryo does not grow properly in the lab, or if it could not "survive comfortably," Horner said, "we would never let it hatch."

Kevin Padian, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley and a curator at the UC Museum of Paleontology, told Discovery News he supports the project.

"The important thing that Jack and Jim are saying here is that there is a lot of information stored in our genes that we don't use -- genes that determine features that evolution has suppressed, for various reasons," Padian said.

"We now have the tools to 'reverse-engineer' some of those constraints and produce traits that look a bit more like those ancient features," he added. "This tells us how genetics, development and evolution are related, so it's tremendously important."

When and if the dinochicken is created, Horner looks forward to bringing it out on a leash during lectures.

"We're always looking for novel ways to get the general public interested in science," he said, "and you have to admit, it would be better than a slide show for demonstrating evolution."

Related Links:

Jennifer Viegas' Blog: Born Animal

Museum of the Rockies

University of California Museum of Paleontology

HowStuffWorks.com: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

HowStuffWorks.com: Dinosaur Reproduction