'Jurassic Park' scientist aims to hatch a dinosaur using DNA from birds

Daily Mail ^ | Dec. 29, 2011 | Ted Thornhill and Zoe Brennan

[Free ThinkerNY]

Some might say that only a bird brain could come up with such a plan, but scientist Jack Horner is hoping to use living birds to hatch a dinosaur.

Horner, the technical adviser on Jurassic Park and professor of palaeontology at Montana State University believes that a modern bird’s DNA contains a genetic memory that could be ‘switched on’ again, resurrecting long-dormant dinosaur traits.

What’s more, he’s looking for a helper to assist in the retro-engineering of a prehistoric beast.

He told LiveScience: ‘I'm looking for a postdoctoral researcher. An adventurous postdoc who knows a lot about developmental biology and a little bit about birds.’ Horner explains that to make a dinosaur, he would start with the genome (the whole hereditary information encoded in the DNA) of an emu.

‘Emus have all the features we need in order to make a Velociraptor-sized dinosaur,’ he says.

‘If I were to make a dinosaur, that is where I’d start.’

Far-fetched as this sounds, his work is supported by other leading academics.

[Bellflower]

With today's tech, for grants, money and fame they could simply splice lizard DNA onto the birds and scam the scientific community into believing that it was simply retrofitted from the past. The scientific community is so hungry to eat up this evolution baloney that I imagine they would swallow the scam whole, bait, line and sinker not unlike they have swallowed so many scams before.

[Pride in the USA]

There will always be the unintended consequences.

[Kickass Conservative]

I'm still waiting for the Wooly Mammoth they were talking about a few months ago. They should walk before they run.