Scientist's Dino Findings Making Waves

Scientist Thinks a "Dino Chicken" Could Be Created in Five Years By Reversing Evolution

(CBS)  There is something about dinosaurs that captures the imagination - giant, mysterious animals that roamed the Earth for millions of years, now gone forever.

All they've left us are their fossils, the dried-out mineral remnants of the creatures they once were, with the organic material that gave them life long gone. Or so everyone always thought.

Until B. "Rex," a 68 million year old Tyrannosaurus Rex, who was dug up and named by a paleontologist from Montana State University whose unorthodox approach to dinosaurs may be changing the whole dino ballgame.

When thinking of dinosaurs, most of us think "Jurassic Park," the 1993 classic film about a dinosaur resurrection experiment gone wrong, and its embattled hero, famed paleontologist Alan Grant.

Web Extra: Dino Chicken
Web Extra: Evo Devo
Book: How to Build a Dinosaur
Montana State University: Museum of the Rockies
North Carolina State University: Dr. Mary Schweitzer
Sean Carroll

60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl met Jack Horner, the real-life Alan Grant who consulted on all of the "Jurassic Park" movies.

Fortunately for him, Horner joked, Grant didn't get eaten.

Jack Horner is one of the most prominent and controversial paleontologists in the country - a dyslexic MacArthur Foundation genius who never finished college, and who says he doesn't care why dinosaurs went extinct.

To him, the important part is how they lived. "I'm trying to figure out the biology of dinosaurs and what they were like as living creatures," he told Stahl.

"You wanna know what their behavior was, how they treated their young," Stahl asked.

"I wanna know everything we can know about them and make one if we can," he replied with a smile.

Make a dinosaur? The things Horner says make him a maverick, but the finds he has made, including more T. Rexes than anyone else in the world, make him a legend.

One of his finds include the teeth of the oldest T. Rex ever found, which Horner pulled out of a drawer in the Collections area of his Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont., and showed Stahl.

"This little pocket right here in the teeth is where the next tooth sits. Dinosaurs replace their teeth throughout their life. And T. Rex replaced all of their teeth every year," Horner explained.

But Horner is most famous for discovering a kinder, gentler side of dinosaurs.

In the badlands of Montana, he and his team uncovered the first dinosaur nesting ground in the world - a vast landscape full of eggs, nests, and babies that helped change our image of dinosaurs.

Thanks to Horner's influence, "Jurassic Park" showed that most dinosaurs were social animals who lived in colonies, and he has found evidence they actually cared for their young.

"So, this is the tibia, the shin bone. And this is a little less than a month old. And here, here is the same bone," he told Stahl, showing her a much bigger bone.

Stahl assumed the larger bone belonged to an adult, but Horner corrected her: though much larger, this specimen belonged to a one-year-old.

Horner figured out that such rapidly growing baby dinosaurs couldn't walk at first, meaning their parents were bringing food back to them in the nest, like birds. His discoveries lent support to a then-controversial but now widely accepted theory that dinosaurs actually gave rise to modern birds.

"If a little kid today who studies all this in school and they look up in the sky and see a bird and turn to mom and say, 'You know, that's a dinosaur'…," Stahl remarked.

"They're right," Horner replied.

[Aaron_B_Butcher]

Whether or not Jesus lived, his message of peace and love is worth following. It was said somewhere that there are more things in heavan and earth than we will ever understand. It doesn't say don't try. I don't even think the bible says we shouldn't try to understand stuff. I'm not afraid of dinosaurs. I'm afraid of the Hadron Super Collider. Now THAT's dangerously mad science!

[ranger2930]

Whoa, Wow, Geez... how this thing turned partisan - liberals, conservatives, bible thumping weirdos, god said this, said that... the scientists are evil! It's Obamas fault. Give it a break. They are just talking about building a dinosaur, what's the big deal? When these Dino-Chickens come out and they are at Walmart all the Jesus for Lunch Bunch will be the first in line for one. I want one to guard my chicken coop. Be a good match for some of these racoons around here, dont cha think?

[farmersdaughter68]

Hooray! Someone that really gets it. Lighten up people. Jack Horner's research and discoveries are truly amazing. I have personally met Jack Horner and if nothing else he inspired my then 5-year-old daughter to have dreams of becoming a paleontologist. Is that evil?

[HawkeyePeering]

Well I guess evolution has just become extinct! There are already two live dinsaurs at the Pittsburgh zoo. We call them komodo dragons, on or about 1630's dragon's names became dinosaurs. Steve Irwin called the komodo dragons, modern day dragons, and he is right. God love him.

[killiangeeslin]

Ha u liberals are hilarious ripping the bible like its all lies and propaganda from the ROMANS. What about all the historical facts that are recorded about the new testament. Jesus was live and he died and that stuff is true and was witnessed by human eyes. But wait ur evolution oh that has zero eye witnesses and so many gaps u could fit the whole universe through it. You people are blind by a few facts and dont see the whole picture and we all know that carbon dating is innacurate so dont go there.

[j0on5]

Well I find it odd that even though Jesus supposedly existed the only writings we have about him are recorded in the Bible. You would think that ancient historians living around the Mediterranean area (there are many, we have their writings) would have recorded something about a man going around performing all these miracles that supposedly happened. Yet we have none. Nay, I dare say that there is no substantial historical information to adequately back up the existence of Jesus Christ other than the Bible. Keep in mind that this is the same book that says a senior citizen with no engineering background built a ship with his bare hands larger than any ship that would be made for the next 2000 years and somehow got 2 of every animal on this earth to board it. And he lived to be 350 years old. Oh, but wait that was an eyewitness account, wasn't it? So it must be true! It amazes me how little critical thinking people have. And where are you getting this information that Carbon-14 dating is inaccurate? Are Christian websites telling you this? I suggest you do a little digging and research the origins of your religion, you may just be surprised. Christianity has more holes in it than Evolution does. Personally I went to private Christian school from kindergarten all the way through high school. Chances are know more about the Bible than you do. My suggestion is to do what I did and do some objective research and look at the origins of Christianity, the time in which these stories were created (because you can see huge changes in god and the way he operates due to different societal values and culture at the time), and then do some research on evolution and science and see which one is more accurate. Personally, I'd rather believe a scientist who tells me that I'll drown if I jump into open ocean rather than a man who tells me it'll be okay because he has an eyewitness account of a man walking on water. But then again, it is easier to just believe a great wizard in the sky did it.

[rablen49]

Are you even literate? Perhaps you should request a dictionary and/or a thesaurus for Christmas. And lessons on how to use them. I happen to be a historian (and I'm very familiar with Roman Empire history), and a student of global religion (and I'm very familiar with Western religious doctrine and the history thereof). From your extremely intelligent posting, it sounds as though you know everything. Is that true? Have you accrued degrees in physics, astronomy, cosmology, geology, and/or history? If so, it seems odd that you cannot employ the English language fluently enough to sound like anything other than a wannabe-rapper-gangstah-mindless jesus freak *******.

Just out of curiosity, which one are you, exactly? By the way, I'm sorry if I used too many multi-syllabic words.

Can you pronounce any of the words that I used? If so, you can reach me at [e-mail]. I teach English and History at the college level.

Can you pronounce the word 'evidence'? You may not have heard it before while you were studying so assiduously for your many degrees.

[phineasjwhoopie]

Actually the Romans created a rudimentary version of what has 'evolved' into your modern King James and the Modern English version of the Bible.

The Roman version merely 'evolved' from a long line of plagiarizations which passed through dozens of cultures and empires throughout early recorded history starting with the Egyptians about 3000 years before your Jesus was even born.

The Egyptian Messiah from this time period went by the name of Horus, he was born of a virgin mother through an immacculate conception on the 25th of December in the presence of the 3 kings who came bearing gifts, he traveled throughout his life with his disciples was later betrayed, placed on trial, crucified and 3 days later rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven. Sound familiar?

There are dozens of religions from different cultures throughout history which have this same familiar ring them. Coincidence? Maybe!
Is it possible that these stories take advantage of the one true undeniable constant, that one reference point that has been eyewitnessed by every living creature on this Earth since the beginning of time (whenever that was) who was at least fortunate enough to have lived long enough to go out and peer into the night sky? HMMMMM?

[Cyber998]

Christianity (like all religions) is just another social control mechanism (after all, the bible was compiled by a Roman Emperor during a period of civil unrest). One which was created before the discovery of Dinosaur fossils (and for that matter: the fact the earth isn't flat, the center of solar system, not to mention: advances in evolutionary biology, plate tectonic theory, human biology etc. which all contradict the bible) which is why such facts don't appear in it.

How some people can still be tricked into believing in superstitious religions is evidence of just how susceptible to social conditioning the human mind really is!

[killiangeeslin]

Exuse me sir the new testament has been proven to be historically reliable why? because they had EYE WITENESSES. wait i dont think anyone witnessed evolution so exuse me the Bible is very true and not propaganda!

[edubrul]

I've been telling by university biology students for years that this was soon to be possible. Go for it!!! Next stop, chimps into humans!! And I hope I'm still alive to see it reported.

[yarnplay]

To borrow a quote from the Jurassic Park Movie:

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. There are consequences for reckless science.

[anti-global3]

We should make the most vicious man eating thing we can come up with and release them in China. Those thieving dogs deserve to be consumed alive.

[afmcalax]

Actually if you believe the right-wing conservatives this would be reversing creationism ... boy would they be in big trouble with the big guy (lol)

[killiangeeslin]

You are forgetting one thing how would organic material stay alive on a dead creature for millions of years? where is the science in that. This proves the earth is only 6,000- 10,000 years old smartie

[anti-global3]

how is this possible. Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution, so it cannot be true.

[killiangeeslin]

Well how about you write a best seller first of all...oh wait no one would read a book about ur lousy liberal life.

[erb0087]

"We're gonna make a fortune with this place !!" - the company lawyer in "Jurassic Park."

(He later gets killed and eaten by the Tyrannosaurus Rex.)

[louiville35]

Well I agree that chicken sized T rexes would be hard to farm (missing fingers, ankle bitters, missing cats just some of the hazards)but served up golden brown.

I wonder what they would feed them, Chickens?

[illumind]

"The things Schweitzer was finding inside dinosaur bones - blood vessels, and even what seemed to be intact cells - pose a radical challenge to the existing rules of science: that organic material can't possibly survive even one million years, let alone 68 million.">>> EVOLUTIONISTS GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND & stop twisting evidence to fit your delusions! Consider that "science" can be wrong and that dinosaurs lived thousands, and NOT millions of years ago.

[kansas1946]

Shaking my head in amazement...
I really, seriously, suggest you take a class in paleontology. You need to educate yourself before you attack scientists that have spent their whole lives, decades and decades, involved in training and research. You think all of these thousands and thousands of scientists got doctorate degrees, spent huge amounts of their own money to get these degrees, spent years in deserts and horrible conditions pulling bones out of the earth with dental tools, spent hours in their labs, conferring with coleagues, looking through microscopes, analizing DNA, just to play a trick on you??

[Wolf1944]

Linguistics is overlooked in these discussions. In the existing human languages there are always native words for the plants and animals that our ancestors encountered. They had to talk about those things.

No natural language has native words for "dinosaur" or any of the types of the types of dinosaurs; there are only inkhorn terms: words invented by scholars out of Latin roots. Ergo, ancient people never saw dinosaurs.

[forasongca]

Great. Someone else who thinks the Flintstones were "historical documents."

"Get your head out of the sand," said the pot to the kettle.

[louiville35]

by Skirt-Lifter November 16, 2009 1:29 PM EST
by louiville35 November 16, 2009 11:50 AM EST

Me, I'm more wondering if KFC will come out with a new line of food, then worrying about who created what.
__________________

Of course they will! They will serve: Breasts, wings, thighs, legs, and introducing TAILS!
===============================================================

NuMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM buffalo claws and dragon tails!

[forasongca]

Ah...but which came first, the chicken or the dinosaur?

[perk235]

This is very exciting research. I am interested in what they continue to find in dinosaurs and other fossil samples. Perhaps instead of genetically altering chickens with dinosaur genes, they could alter ostriches, which are much bigger.

[Skirt-Lifter]

by crisrcraft November 16, 2009 12:56 PM EST
Evolutionist are just hilarious. Clearly dinosaurs were here just a few thousand years ago (during the time of Job). Clearly God created the different "kinds" of animals and the two shall never mix. Dogs and cats don't create "catdogs" neither do people and monkeys and of all things, chickens are definitely not dinosaurs. If you don't believe the Bible then at least be willing to believe the science.
__________________________

In the beginning, God created Dinosaurs. And God looked upon his creation and said, "WT eff! Holy jumpin' up jebuses! What a freakin' mistake!"

God promptly caused and asteroid to take 'em out... to kill his creation. God then ordered that there will be no more mention of the mistake. Well, heck, he didn't want his next creation to know he's fallible.

[Wolf1944]

Linguistics is overlooked in these discussions. In the existing human languages there are always native words for the plants and animals that our ancestors encountered. They had to talk about those things.

No natural language has native words for "dinosaur" or any of the types of the types of dinosaurs; there are only inkhorn terms: words invented by scholars out of Latin roots. Ergo, ancient people never saw dinosaurs.

The interspecies infertility of cats and dogs says nothing about evolution. Do you know what the term "non sequitur" means?

And the plural of "evolutionist" is "evolutionists." If a word ends in "st," the plural is formed by adding an "s."

[Skirt-Lifter]

by louiville35 November 16, 2009 11:50 AM EST

Me, I'm more wondering if KFC will come out with a new line of food, then worrying about who created what.
__________________

Of course they will! They will serve: Breasts, wings, thighs, legs, and introducing TAILS!

[Skirt-Lifter]

by pigsinlipstick November 16, 2009 11:50 AM EST
GOD? WHAT A CROCK,

SURE , JESUS RODE A DINOSAUR AROUND THAT IS WHY THE BIBLE

NEVER MENTIONS ONE AT ALL, IDIOTS, RELIGIONISTS ARE FOOLS
_____________________

Actually, the bible does mention dino's, well ... kinda, anyway. It mentions "Giants". Maybe when those writers of scripture stumbles on the the thigh bone of a dino', they thought that "Giants" roamed the Earth.

[forasongca]

Why couldn't the Bible have been referring to the Jotnar, the "giants" of Norse legend? Or the big dude that Jason and the Argonauts fought in that movie? Goliath might have been the last of his kind...though we've yet to see skeletons of **** Gigantis to support that.

[killiangeeslin]

It doesnt mention dinosours but then agian it doesnt metion other extint animals so...whats ur point. I mean the Bible is not a book about animals bud but a book that gives meaning to life. And if evolution is true then why do humans have guilt after sinning? Morals and where where morals come from not from an ape!!!

[crisrcraft]

Evolutionist are just hilarious. Clearly dinosaurs were here just a few thousand years ago (during the time of Job). Clearly God created the different "kinds" of animals and the two shall never mix. Dogs and cats don't create "catdogs" neither do people and monkeys and of all things, chickens are definitely not dinosaurs. If you don't believe the Bible then at least be willing to believe the science.

[kansas1946]

Oh yes, T-rex was mentioned constantly in the Bible. Brother.

[Wolf1944]

Linguistics is overlooked in these discussions. In the existing human languages there are always native words for the plants and animals that our ancestors encountered. They had to talk about those things.

No natural language has native words for "dinosaur" or any of the types of the types of dinosaurs; there are only inkhorn terms: words invented by scholars out of Latin roots. Ergo, ancient people never saw dinosaurs.

The plural of "evolutionist" is "evolutionists" by the way.

[sightpoint]

This is my hypothesis. We have become accustom to advances in technology so when a scientist says, "guess what we got", we say "oh I can't wait" and believe it. We transfer that trust to other areas of science and the next thing I hear is stupid high school hopes presented as fact! What a waste of money and time! By the way...Who is funding this wacko?

[sightpoint]

I'm embarrassed to comment on such a stupid idea? But here I go...Maybe I am de-evolving? Why? 1st. If you can bring back extinct animals why start with dinosaurs? Sounds like a little kid in the back yard to me. Some dude gets a degree and puts out a hypothesis. The next thing we hear is how it is a fact. When did this crap start? Even the science channel is jumping in.