Using the fossil record as a guide, a research team led by Yale paleontologist and developmental biologist Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar and Harvard developmental biologist Arhat Abzhanov conducted the first successful reversion of a bird’s skull features. The scientists replicated ancestral molecular development to transform chicken embryos in a laboratory into specimens with a snout and palate configuration similar to that of small dinosaurs such as Velociraptor and Archaeopteryx.
Bhart-Anjan Bhullar, Assistant Professor of Geology & Geophysics and Assistant Curator, Yale University
Image credit: John Conway
Links:
NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/science/reverse-engineering-birds-beak…
NPR
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/12/406256185/how-bird-bea…
Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/dino-chickens-reveal-how-the-beak-was-born-1….
Science
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/05/how-birds-got-their-beaks
Livescience
http://www.livescience.com/50801-chicken-with-dinosaur-snout-images.html
NBC
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/scientists-create-chicken-e…
Wired
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/12/dino-chickens
NPR Science Friday
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/05/15/2015/chicken-beaks-and-dinosaur-snouts.html
New York Times article #2
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/16/opinion/the-chicken-or-the-egg-or-the-dinosaur.html?_r=0
CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists-engineer-chickens-with-dinosaur-snouts/