Jack proposes that birds are actually living dinosaurs but just look different. Birds lack long tails, their arms are wings instead of hands, they have a beak, and they are toothless.
This research project aims to retro-engineer a dinosaur-like animal from a bird. To do this, researchers must first look and study certain genes of ancestral birds. Once it is known which genes were turned on and off during the evolution of birds, certain genes can be turned off as part of the ‘Dino-Chicken’ retro-engineering process.
Many researchers are working on the evolution of birds, for example at Montana State University and McGill University. These important studies provide the critical data on various evolutionary genetic patterns, which further contribute to the very real possibility that there may one day be a ‘Dino-Chicken.’
Explore the facts about the “Dino Chicken Project” project in the November 2014 Washington Post article “Paleontologist Jack Horner is Hard at Work Trying to Turn a Chicken into a Dinosaur.”