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Dino-chicken
By: Will, John, Nicole and Nick
Back in the day…
• Mesozoic era
• Dinosaurs were dominant life forms on
planet Earth
• Divided into two categories
Ornischian
• Bird hipped dinosaurs
Saurishian
• Lizard hipped dinosaurs
First I was like
• Therapod dinosaurs were bi-pedal
carnivores
• Ranged in size from three feet long to over
forty
• Only branch of dinosaurs to survive the KT
extinction
But then I was like!
• Birds are the closest living relatives of
therapod dinosaurs
• All evolved wings over 65 million years
• But all birds still share anatomical
similarities with them
• This is a chicken when it is still a developing
embryo
• Notice the long tail and exaggerated features
• As an embryo chickens still have long tails, long
clawed arms and legs, and even teeth
• Video 1
There's no going back….or is
there?
• Scientists think they can genetically alter
chickens back into dinosaurs
• By somehow overpowering the recessive
traits that control the chickens growth,
vestigial traits can be left to develop
Let there be DINO-CHICKENS
• If these vestigial traits develop fully,
chickens will be born resembling therapod
dinosaurs
• How awesome is that
But how does this work?
• The science is called Evolutionary
Development Biology
• Retinoic acid and tungsten wire used to try
and promote tail growth
 Injecting chicken embryo at different points
+ times to affect development
 Video 2
Fossil cloning
• Scientists have always pondered the idea
of cloning dinosaurs through fossils
• But there are several problems with this
• Fossilization usually destroys all organic
matter
But wait! What about that one
time?
• In 2005 a fossilized phemur of a
Tyrannosaurus containing “soft matter”
was discovered in eastern Montana
• The soft matter was hypothesized to be
intact bone-marrow
• Turned out to be too damaged to work with
Aww man…
• O well, but if the bone marrow was intact
the scientists could use it
• They would most likely
1.Take the nucleus out of a birds egg
2.Insert the nucleus of the T-rex’s bone
marrow cell
3.Insert the egg into a lucky lady chicken
Is it ethical?
• There is some debate as to if this
experiment is ethical or not
• Ethics aside, Dino-chicken is not far off
The End