A world-renowned paleontologist takes readers all over
the globe to reveal a new science that trumps science fiction: how
humans can re-create a dinosaur.
In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've
all seen dinosaurs-or at least somebody's educated guess of what
they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or
grow, a real dinosaur, without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner,
the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on Jurassic
Park, and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the
twenty-first century, teams up with the editor of The New York
Times,'s Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in
store.
In the 1980s, Horner began using CAT scans to look inside
fossilized dinosaur eggs, and he and his colleagues have been
delving deeper ever since. At North Carolina State University, Mary
Schweitzer has extracted fossil molecules-proteins that survived 68
million years-from a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil excavated by Horner.
These proteins show that T. rex and the modern chicken are kissing
cousins. At McGill University, Hans Larsson is manipulating a
chicken embryo to awaken the dinosaur within: starting by growing a
tail and eventually prompting it to grow the forelimbs of a
dinosaur. All of this is happening without changing a single
gene.
This incredible research is leading to discoveries and
applications so profound they're scary in the power they confer on
humanity. How to Build a Dinosaur is a tour of the hot
rocky deserts and air-conditioned laboratories at the forefront of
this scientific revolution.
