We bring you a guest post today from Faraz Hussain, who studies biochemistry at Illinois Institute of Technology. Faraz is a student of Joseph Orgel, the biologist researching preserved dinosaur tissue whom we profiled in the latest episode of Clever Apes. Here, Faraz introduces us to a completely different way of bridging the eons to bring dinosaurs into the present day. Gabriel Spitzer

Dinosaurs 180 million-odd year reign may be considered a lively old romp by most, but some clever apes would prefer to study these fossils in the flesh. One particular suborder, the theropods, never really went extinct at all. The birds that descended from them are the nearest living relatives today of both raptors and tyrannosaursperhaps none more so than the humble hen. Paleontologist Jack Horner, one of the most vocal exponents of avian dinosaurs being all around us, would rather that hens' more imposing ancestors had not evolutionarily "chickened out" in the first place.

Instead of messing about with amber-encased mosquitoes gorged on dino-DNA and playing fill-in-the-blanks with frog and bird genomes la Jurassic Park, Horner has been rallying his paleontologist pals and evolutionary developmental biologists to try a fresh tack on resurrecting a dinosaur: He wants to reverse-engineer a chickenosaurus. Hey, why start from scratch when you already have a fully-formed dinosaur in need of just a few minor genetic modifications? What follows is not your grandma's stuffed chicken recipe:

Chicken fingers:

While birds may have opted for wings instead of claws, both the T. rex and the chicken have only three digits at the end of each. In birds, however, these fingers have fused together. Hans Larsson at McGill University's Redpath Museum is looking for ways to short-circuit the genetic pathway responsible for this process in the chicken's embryonic stage and allowing the digits to separate so that, instead of those delicious wings, it ends up with far deadlier talons instead.

Rump:

A chicken has only a handful of vertebrae at the end of its spine that fuse to form what passes for its tail. In 2007, Larsson observed a tail in a developing chick embryo that had 16, although by the time it hatched these had dwindled to five. Turn off the genetic mechanism that triggers the breakdown and absorption of the tail, and voilyou're well on your way to the 40 or so vertebrae found in some of the heftiest hindquarters ever: the T. rex tail.

Teeth:

Matthew Harris discovered the rudiments of teeth on a frankenchicken embryo called the talpid2 usually known for its polydactyl fingers. While a far cry from the toothy old tyrannosaur grin that we know and lovethe genome of a chicken doesnt contain genes coding for enamel, nor can they produce dentin, which made up the bulk of those formidable fangsits finally a fighting chance for poultry to bite back!

Continue reading here:
Clever Apes: Cooking up a dino-chicken