The thighs of dinosaurs were better equipped because they had to be fast in order to survive.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – Scientists created dinosaur-legged chickens which makes some think that science is a fascinating field. But in order to obtain the results that sometimes get the scientists a Nobel nominalization, they must experiment. And when you have knowledge by your side there is little you can’t do.
The fact that modern-day birds have evolved from dinosaurs is known for quite a time now. Researchers have even discovered a link between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the hummingbird. But the process that led to the evolution is what eludes the brilliant minds of the present.
That is why scientists created dinosaur-legged chickens. They wanted to see how the transition between the legs of an ordinary chicken and those of a reptile that went extinct a couple of million years ago.
The modern-day chicken’s legs, or the drumsticks as KFC goers might know them, are made out of two major bones: the tibia (the thicker one, which people usually hold onto when eating a drumstick) and the fibula (the one that resembles a spine).
While still in the embryonic state, the bones are developed in equal length. But as the embryo starts to mature, the tibia ends up outgrowing the fibula which is then only attached to the knee. Because of this evolutionary mechanism, the chicken’s legs are no longer as powerful as they were when they roamed the Earth as mighty reptiles.
For a better understanding of the evolutionary process that left chickens with tiny fibulas, Alexander Vargas and Joâo Botelho from the Chile University decided to genetically modify an embryo. The two Chilean scientists tampered with the chicken’s DNA sufficiently enough to make both the bones grow at equal lengths.
Basically, the two scientists created dinosaur-legged chickens for the sake of analyzing the evolutionary pathway of dinosaur’s feet.
But there are other voices in the scientific community who say that the experiment didn’t just created dinosaur legs, but it also brought back some dinosaur traits. These traits that Hans Larsson at McGill University speaks about are awfully familiar to the opening credits of Jurassic Park.
Michael Crichton imaged the whole process a little bit different. He based his novel on the idea of scientists discovering dinosaur DNA in a fossilized mosquito and then cloning them. But it seems that Vargas and Botelho came up with a better idea.
Researchers could just take the descendants of the great reptiles and reverse their DNA to create new dinosaurs.
Scientists created dinosaur-legged chickens, and that may be the first step towards a real Jurassic Park. Somebody should call Chris Pratt.
Image source: www.pixabay.com