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kamreadsandrecsA common topic that comes up during discussions with friends is that of pets. Some of us have them, some of us don't, but all of us, I think, in our own way, want specific animals for pets. If I could have my way right now, I'd love to have an Italian Greyhound - but that's only because my family doesn't like cats. If could really have my way, I'd like to have a cat - not necessarily purebred (a relatively healthy stray with a pretty face will do), but if I could have a purebred, a Bombay would be absolutely ideal, because I seriously want a black cat.
Sometimes these conversations get completely out of hand, and we contemplate less probable animals as pets. One of my colleagues would love a bear for a pet, preferably a polar bear, or a panda (which I've always found hilarious, because pandas are generally considered too lazy to even want to reproduce). Personally, I'd like a peregrine falcon, or a cheetah. But when the conversations get really out of hand, that's when you see the preferences for things like griffins and dragons, and other such beasties that don't really exist.
One of my favorite answers at this point (aside from dragons) would definitely have to be a Velociraptor. I've long been fascinated by dinosaurs, and while it'd be great to own something like a triceratops (a personal favorite from the Cretaceous), I would seriously love a Velociraptor. They're only the size of turkeys, but I like the idea of owning a turkey that can slit open anyone or anything that looked at it (or me, so I like to believe) the wrong way. Imagine the looks I'd get if I walked around with one of those on a leash!
Unfortunately, bringing extinct dinosaurs back to life in the present is simply an idea that doesn't hold too much water. Much of my reading about evolution and genetic engineering has already disproved the concept behind Jurassic Park, which involves taking dinosaur blood from the guts of a mosquito preserved in amber, and then using the DNA from that blood to recreate dinosaurs in a lab. Since the time the movie first came out the science upon which the concept was built has been proved wrong, and I've long come to accept that I'll never have my vicious little turkey on the end of a leash.
However, I think I may have dismissed the idea a little too soon. During this year's Book Fair, after I had found Nick Lane's Life Ascending (which I reviewed in an earlier entry), the next book I stumbled upon was of the sort that absolutely guaranteed my attention and subsequent purchase: How to Build a Dinosaur: The New Science of Reverse Engineering by Jack Horner and James Gorman.
The title How to Build a Dinosaur is, on its own, both intriguing and kind of misleading. It kind of suggests a how-to guide for something that's already been done, for something that science has already accomplished. However, the book itself is not about the actual building of the dinosaur, but about a new kind of science that could, conceivably, allow such a thing to happen.
Was this disappointing? Kind of, though I suppose that if someone had actually managed to reverse-engineer a dinosaur I'd have heard of it through some major news channel, or at the very least through National Geographic. It's the sort of breakthrough, after all, that would definitely garner heavy news coverage. A living, breathing dinosaur, even if it isn't as spectacular as T. rex or even one of the larger and more famous herbivores, would definitely make a lot of noise in the media, and it would definitely make more than a few headlines.
Happily, the disappointment didn't last very long once I really started reading the book. Jack Horner, one of the most famous paleontologists in the world (not the least because he was one of the primary consultants for Jurassic Park) writes in his Introduction how he, like many other paleontologists, would like nothing more than to "Bring 'em back alive." Sure, bones and "mummies" (like this one) are all well and good, but it's nothing compared to the living, breathing animal. However, since all the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, this isn't something anybody can do, right?
That might not necessarily be the case. For some time now many scientists have come to the consensus that birds are actually the descendants of dinosaurs. You read that right: birds did not simply evolve from dinosaurs (like we evolved from chimps), but are descended from them - or at least, a branch of the dinosaur family tree that, interestingly enough, includes the raptors and some of the larger, meat-eating dinosaurs. In fact, scientists have concluded that T. rex's closest living relative is the bird that goes by the scientific name Gallus gallus - otherwise known as the chicken.
This link between birds and dinosaurs is one of the anchor points of Horner's proposition, or "campaign," as he calls it in a later chapter. He talks about the science of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo or devo-evo for short), which is a combination of embryology, molecular biology, genetic engineering, and some paleontology on the side, and how it could take a chicken embryo and carefully manipulate specific genes so that what hatches out of the egg isn't a chicken, but something like it, exhibiting atavistic traits - traits which belong to a more primitive ancestor. One can, in short, reverse-engineer a chicken into a dinosaur.
The idea, laid out in a direct manner like I've just done, might sound absurd, more like the premise for a sci-fi story instead of actual science. Fortunately, Horner takes his time to build his case, offering factual evidence in support of the experiment he's suggesting. How to Build a Dinosaur doesn't describe the process as a past-tense, done-and-over-it sort of thing. Instead, it presents the process as an almost magical possibility, one that can most definitely be accomplished if enough time, effort, and of course, money are put into the endeavor. If that's the case, it's entirely possible that the first living, reverse-engineered dinosaur will hatch within my lifetime.
This does not mean, though, that it's going to be easy. Horner makes that clear as well, describing the sort of research that must first take place before scientists can even begin to play around with a chicken's genes to get the results he's suggesting. Take the tail, for example. Dinosaurs have them, but birds, including chickens, don't. You'd think it'd be easy for scientists to figure out which genes they need to tweak to give a chicken a tail, but as it turns out, it's not so straightforward as that. Scientists haven't really done research into tails, so they're only now really beginning to focus on it (in the hopes of finding solutions to deadly spinal mutations in human embryos), but Horner hopes that whatever is learned in that department can be used to make a chicken into a dinosaur.
The appendix contains two images: one of an Saurornitholestes, a small dinosaur from the same evolutionary branch as birds. The other is the hypothetical Chickenosaurus, the possible result of reverse-engineering a chicken embryo into an atavism. It is these two drawings that, I think, drive home Horner's point in the best way possible, especially when you see the incredible similarities between the skeletons. The drawings prove Horner's point: with enough research and study, it is entirely possible to turn a chicken into a dinosaur with just a few genetic tweaks here and there.
Horner's enthusiasm and determination to "Bring 'em back alive" is very clear in the book, and it's easy to get carried away with it, especially if you're a dinosaur enthusiast and hence share in his hopes. Fortunately, this enthusiasm is balanced by the realism essential to many a scientist, and he describes the pros, cons, and difficulties of the course he is determined to explore, and is encouraging other scientists to explore. He knows it's possible, but he never, ever suggests it'll be easy. This pragmatism is something I completely approve of.
Another interesting (and valuable) thread that runs through this book is the fact that scientists from different fields really have to work together if they are to understand the story of life on Earth. The study of evolution has benefited from the input of the various branches of biology, but Horner is of the opinion that if the field is to truly move forward, it is time to come together and bring the skills and concepts essential to these (usually) disparate fields to bear upon one another. He espouses an interdisciplinary approach, one that will allow fresh eyes and fresh skills to come to bear on the study of evolution and, hopefully, yield new and incredible insights into life itself.
The only snag that I can see with this book is that it really is specific to the dinosaur enthusiast, even more specifically someone who's more scientifically inclined. A lot of this book would have been difficult and somewhat confusing if I hadn't read books like Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth and Lane's Life Ascending before starting on this one. The bits focused on molecular biology, in particular, can be slow-going if you haven't really read up on the basic concepts. Not to say that Horner doesn't attempt to simplify everything in layman's language, but I'm glad that I read Life Ascending first, since it explains the details of molecular biology in a more comprehensive manner than Horner does (or can't, really, given the scope of his book). After reading Lane's book, the more technical bits of How to Build a Dinosaur weren't so bad.
From now on, I'm holding out on the possibility of having my own pet Velociraptor in maybe ten or twenty years, maybe sooner, given how quickly science and technology progress. And if they can do this same process on an ostrich, well... I've always wanted a pet Deinonychus too, which is even better since I can put a saddle on that and ride it around. Imagine the amount of money I'd save on gas and parking, plus the reduced - immensely reduced - likelihood of theft!
After all, if my personal transport comes with its own anti-theft system consisting of massive sickle-shaped claws that can disembowel anything, plus a head full of razor-sharp teeth, I don't think I really need an alarm.
Sometimes these conversations get completely out of hand, and we contemplate less probable animals as pets. One of my colleagues would love a bear for a pet, preferably a polar bear, or a panda (which I've always found hilarious, because pandas are generally considered too lazy to even want to reproduce). Personally, I'd like a peregrine falcon, or a cheetah. But when the conversations get really out of hand, that's when you see the preferences for things like griffins and dragons, and other such beasties that don't really exist.
One of my favorite answers at this point (aside from dragons) would definitely have to be a Velociraptor. I've long been fascinated by dinosaurs, and while it'd be great to own something like a triceratops (a personal favorite from the Cretaceous), I would seriously love a Velociraptor. They're only the size of turkeys, but I like the idea of owning a turkey that can slit open anyone or anything that looked at it (or me, so I like to believe) the wrong way. Imagine the looks I'd get if I walked around with one of those on a leash!
Unfortunately, bringing extinct dinosaurs back to life in the present is simply an idea that doesn't hold too much water. Much of my reading about evolution and genetic engineering has already disproved the concept behind Jurassic Park, which involves taking dinosaur blood from the guts of a mosquito preserved in amber, and then using the DNA from that blood to recreate dinosaurs in a lab. Since the time the movie first came out the science upon which the concept was built has been proved wrong, and I've long come to accept that I'll never have my vicious little turkey on the end of a leash.
However, I think I may have dismissed the idea a little too soon. During this year's Book Fair, after I had found Nick Lane's Life Ascending (which I reviewed in an earlier entry), the next book I stumbled upon was of the sort that absolutely guaranteed my attention and subsequent purchase: How to Build a Dinosaur: The New Science of Reverse Engineering by Jack Horner and James Gorman.
The title How to Build a Dinosaur is, on its own, both intriguing and kind of misleading. It kind of suggests a how-to guide for something that's already been done, for something that science has already accomplished. However, the book itself is not about the actual building of the dinosaur, but about a new kind of science that could, conceivably, allow such a thing to happen.
Was this disappointing? Kind of, though I suppose that if someone had actually managed to reverse-engineer a dinosaur I'd have heard of it through some major news channel, or at the very least through National Geographic. It's the sort of breakthrough, after all, that would definitely garner heavy news coverage. A living, breathing dinosaur, even if it isn't as spectacular as T. rex or even one of the larger and more famous herbivores, would definitely make a lot of noise in the media, and it would definitely make more than a few headlines.
Happily, the disappointment didn't last very long once I really started reading the book. Jack Horner, one of the most famous paleontologists in the world (not the least because he was one of the primary consultants for Jurassic Park) writes in his Introduction how he, like many other paleontologists, would like nothing more than to "Bring 'em back alive." Sure, bones and "mummies" (like this one) are all well and good, but it's nothing compared to the living, breathing animal. However, since all the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, this isn't something anybody can do, right?
That might not necessarily be the case. For some time now many scientists have come to the consensus that birds are actually the descendants of dinosaurs. You read that right: birds did not simply evolve from dinosaurs (like we evolved from chimps), but are descended from them - or at least, a branch of the dinosaur family tree that, interestingly enough, includes the raptors and some of the larger, meat-eating dinosaurs. In fact, scientists have concluded that T. rex's closest living relative is the bird that goes by the scientific name Gallus gallus - otherwise known as the chicken.
This link between birds and dinosaurs is one of the anchor points of Horner's proposition, or "campaign," as he calls it in a later chapter. He talks about the science of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo or devo-evo for short), which is a combination of embryology, molecular biology, genetic engineering, and some paleontology on the side, and how it could take a chicken embryo and carefully manipulate specific genes so that what hatches out of the egg isn't a chicken, but something like it, exhibiting atavistic traits - traits which belong to a more primitive ancestor. One can, in short, reverse-engineer a chicken into a dinosaur.
The idea, laid out in a direct manner like I've just done, might sound absurd, more like the premise for a sci-fi story instead of actual science. Fortunately, Horner takes his time to build his case, offering factual evidence in support of the experiment he's suggesting. How to Build a Dinosaur doesn't describe the process as a past-tense, done-and-over-it sort of thing. Instead, it presents the process as an almost magical possibility, one that can most definitely be accomplished if enough time, effort, and of course, money are put into the endeavor. If that's the case, it's entirely possible that the first living, reverse-engineered dinosaur will hatch within my lifetime.
This does not mean, though, that it's going to be easy. Horner makes that clear as well, describing the sort of research that must first take place before scientists can even begin to play around with a chicken's genes to get the results he's suggesting. Take the tail, for example. Dinosaurs have them, but birds, including chickens, don't. You'd think it'd be easy for scientists to figure out which genes they need to tweak to give a chicken a tail, but as it turns out, it's not so straightforward as that. Scientists haven't really done research into tails, so they're only now really beginning to focus on it (in the hopes of finding solutions to deadly spinal mutations in human embryos), but Horner hopes that whatever is learned in that department can be used to make a chicken into a dinosaur.
The appendix contains two images: one of an Saurornitholestes, a small dinosaur from the same evolutionary branch as birds. The other is the hypothetical Chickenosaurus, the possible result of reverse-engineering a chicken embryo into an atavism. It is these two drawings that, I think, drive home Horner's point in the best way possible, especially when you see the incredible similarities between the skeletons. The drawings prove Horner's point: with enough research and study, it is entirely possible to turn a chicken into a dinosaur with just a few genetic tweaks here and there.
Horner's enthusiasm and determination to "Bring 'em back alive" is very clear in the book, and it's easy to get carried away with it, especially if you're a dinosaur enthusiast and hence share in his hopes. Fortunately, this enthusiasm is balanced by the realism essential to many a scientist, and he describes the pros, cons, and difficulties of the course he is determined to explore, and is encouraging other scientists to explore. He knows it's possible, but he never, ever suggests it'll be easy. This pragmatism is something I completely approve of.
Another interesting (and valuable) thread that runs through this book is the fact that scientists from different fields really have to work together if they are to understand the story of life on Earth. The study of evolution has benefited from the input of the various branches of biology, but Horner is of the opinion that if the field is to truly move forward, it is time to come together and bring the skills and concepts essential to these (usually) disparate fields to bear upon one another. He espouses an interdisciplinary approach, one that will allow fresh eyes and fresh skills to come to bear on the study of evolution and, hopefully, yield new and incredible insights into life itself.
The only snag that I can see with this book is that it really is specific to the dinosaur enthusiast, even more specifically someone who's more scientifically inclined. A lot of this book would have been difficult and somewhat confusing if I hadn't read books like Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth and Lane's Life Ascending before starting on this one. The bits focused on molecular biology, in particular, can be slow-going if you haven't really read up on the basic concepts. Not to say that Horner doesn't attempt to simplify everything in layman's language, but I'm glad that I read Life Ascending first, since it explains the details of molecular biology in a more comprehensive manner than Horner does (or can't, really, given the scope of his book). After reading Lane's book, the more technical bits of How to Build a Dinosaur weren't so bad.
From now on, I'm holding out on the possibility of having my own pet Velociraptor in maybe ten or twenty years, maybe sooner, given how quickly science and technology progress. And if they can do this same process on an ostrich, well... I've always wanted a pet Deinonychus too, which is even better since I can put a saddle on that and ride it around. Imagine the amount of money I'd save on gas and parking, plus the reduced - immensely reduced - likelihood of theft!
After all, if my personal transport comes with its own anti-theft system consisting of massive sickle-shaped claws that can disembowel anything, plus a head full of razor-sharp teeth, I don't think I really need an alarm.
Re: Velociraptors
Date: 2010-12-30 02:21 pm (UTC)Again, thanks for reading!