The Scientist Who Has Consulted For Every Jurassic Park Movie Thinks That Science Is Five Years Away From Bringing Back Dinosaurs
People- Jurassic World’s genetically modified super-dino, the Indominus Rex, may seem like science fiction, but paleontologists and geneticists are closer than you might think to splicing dinosaurs back into existence. But before they can recreate a terrifying, 40-foot-long killing machine (assuming they still want to after watching the movie), scientists are starting smaller – with many believing the key to bringing back dinosaurs lies in none other than the modern day chicken.
Famed paleontologist Dr. Jack Horner, who’s been a consultant on all four films and is the real-life inspiration for Jurassic Park‘s dinosaur expert Dr. Alan Grant, believes we’re (optimistically) just five years away from genetically engineering a dinosaur.
I don’t know if Woj Bombs happen for science but fuck this feels it deserves like a Science Woj Bomb. I’ve always thought that it was bullshit that dinosaurs weren’t created after the first Jurassic Park because that whole dinosauah DNA + a frog explanation from Mr. DNA seemed like it was pretty damn foolproof to me.
However I guess DNA has an expiration date or some shit for cloning purposes, which seems a little fishy to me. But whatever. If Dr. Jack says it can’t be done, it can’t be done. Apparently taking the chicken from your table and turning it into a dinosaur is the way to go.
Horner says that the genetic engineering angle of the Jurassic World plot gave him an idea: What if the best way to produce a dinosaur is by reversing evolution? In other words, what if we took a bird like a chicken (which already holds the prehistoric genetic markers of its dinosaur ancestors) and flipped the right switches to mutate the animal back to its prehistoric roots. It turns out this option is not only possible, but Horner believes half the work in creating the “Chickenosaurus” (his name, not ours) is already complete.
“Of course birds are dinosaurs,” Horner reminds PEOPLE, “so we just need to fix them so they look a little more like a dinosaur.” He notes that the four major distinctions between birds and dinosaurs are: “Dinosaurs had long tails, arms, and hands – and through evolution they’ve lost their tails, and their arms and hands have turned into wings. Additionally, their whole snout has changed from the velociraptor-look to the bird-like beak morphology.”
Therefore, to change a bird back into dinosaur, Horner is working to flick the right genetic switches “in such a way that we’ll get these ancestral characteristics back.” In what Horner calls a definitive “proof of concept,” a group at Harvard and Yale “just recently, within the last few weeks, were able to transform the head of a bird back to actually reverse-engineer the bird’s snout back into a dinosaur-like snout.”
Currently, the doctor is working on retro-engineering the tail portion back into existence. “Basically what we do is we go into an embryo that’s just beginning to form, and use some genetic markers to sort of identify when certain genes turn on and when they turn off,” Horner explains. “And by determining when certain genes turn on, we can sort of figure out how a tail begins to develop. And we want to fix that gene so it doesn’t stop the tail from growing.” With the Harvard/Yale group’s breakthrough in the snout department, Horner believes the “Chickensoraus” could become a reality in the next five to 10 years.
Okay, making a dinosaur from a chicken is definitely a lotttt less cool than the Dino DNA + frog mumbo jumbo. But I’ll take it. I bet some Russian knockoff Jurassic Park will open years after the real Jurassic Park opens by using the frog method and the dinosaurs may be a little slow because they are missing a chromosome or two. But they will still be awesome dinosaurs.
Nonetheless, it sounds like bringing dinosaurs back during our lifetime is a real possibility. And that’s awesome. In fact, I think we need to push up this already pretty awesome 5-10 year timeline up. Can’t we get an All Hands On Deck meeting for scientists around the world? Pretty much unless you are working on the cure for cancer, you should be chipping in your giant brain to getting dinosaurs back on this planet ASAP. There is nothing that scientists can possibly be working on that is cooler than dinosaurs. Isn’t that the reason you get into science? To do cool shit?
Same goes for millionaires and billionaires. I’m sure Jeff Bezos will donate a few billion if he’s allowed to keep a few dinosaurs for his secret army of robot dogs and drones that he is building for his attempt world domination. Elon Musk will silence all the haters, even Slim Daddy Trent, if he temporarily shelves his “really fast train” idea to help bring the T-Rex back to Earth. And if Steven Spielberg really cares more about dinosaurs than money, he would cut that check and make this blog a reality, no matter how much it would hurt his goldmine of movies with fake dinosaurs in them. It’s time to put up or shut up Uncle Stevie!
And yes I realize that everything in the movies says that bringing back dinosaurs is a terrible idea for a myriad of reasons. But despite all that, I would be the first in line for whenever a real life Jurassic Park opens. As you can tell by my body, I’m not here for a long time, I’m here for a good time. I’ve been begging for a Jurassic Park movie where the audience just goes around looking at the dinosaurs in their exhibits and nothing happens. Just a beautiful day at the dinosaur zoo. Well if the Hollywood elite can’t give me that, maybe the scientific elite can. Again, I know there is a better than good chance everything will end in horrible bloodshed along the lines of the awesome yet horrifically way too violent for children Dinosaurs Attack cards of the 80s.
But facts are facts. Sooner or later, World War III is going to break out and humanity is going to be a wrap. It could be in a year, a decade, or a century from now. But make no mistake, it’s coming and it’s going to destroy everything. It doesn’t matter if it’s the nukes that kills us or the Boston Dynamics robots. But one way or another, we are going down hard. Which is why we need to add “Brought Back Dinosaurs” to mankind’s resume before we add “Wiped Itself Off The Planet” to its resume. Dinosaurs caught a rough break millions of years ago when they got cuncelled by that meteor. It’s time for man to right that wrong and bring back dinosaurs before the next World Cup.
NOW HIT THE DINOSAURS MOTHERFUCKING MUSIC!!!
The best song in Jurassic Park in my humble opinion
And the best song in the history of the world in my even humbler opinion
Also it has to be pointed out just how incredible the coincidence is that the man that could be responsible for bringing back the most magnificently monstrous creatures to ever roam the Earth (Dr. Jack Horner)
shares a name with the man that brought the most magnificently monstrous creature to ever grace the silver screen of the porn industry (Producer Jack Horner)
