I couldn’t tell if this was the plot to Jurassic World 2 or a real story. I mean, the New York Post is reporting it as real, but… come on, are we really this stupid?
So, there’s this theory floating around that we can perhaps strip the modern genetic material from reproductive material (they’ve been doing such work with goat eggs, apparently) (I’m like 90% sure they don’t mean goats lay eggs like chickens, but this is some sci-fi level stuff we’re talking about) and “activate” the more ancient genetic material. Chickens are descended from the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex, and therefore we much try it with them since they are literally everywhere.
Here’s where the science gets into terrifying movie territory:
“By tinkering with the development programs of embryonic chickens, he hopes to persuade them to bring out their inner dinosaur; to develop dinosaur-like features like teeth and tails.” In short, Horner is trying to hatch real-life chickens that are more dinosaur-like.
Even so, the odds of de-extincting the dinosaur are about as good as one showing up as your next Uber driver.
Scientists are currently trying to de-extinct species as diverse as the dodo, the passenger pigeon and the woolly mammoth but have hit roadblocks including a lack of DNA, no proper incubation environment and the risk of cruelty to living related species that would need to serve as surrogates.
I have two very important questions here:
- Did science look at 2016 and think “You know what that year was missing? A real life Jurassic Park incident. Let’s make this happen.”?
- Does this mean dinosaur comes in both white meat and dark meat?
Science is going to be the death of us.
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