Uncovering the Science Behind Chicken Dinosaurs: Enzymes and Genome Manipulation

[GiTS]

There was a program on the discovery channel awhile ago about a scientist who made chicken embryos with teeth and a tail. But I can't find anything on how he did it. I think there was something about enzymes. Anybody got info?

Can scientists do that kind of thing with the genome yet?

 

[Lok]

We transformed a grey wolf into a chiuhuahua ... no genetics involved.

We had a mouse grow a human ear ... much encoding involved.

We can do much of what is not absolutely necessary.

 

[MATLABdude]

There was a program on the discovery channel awhile ago about a scientist who made chicken embryos with teeth and a tail. But I can't find anything on how he did it. I think there was something about enzymes. Anybody got info?

Can scientists do that kind of thing with the genome yet?

You may, perhaps, be thinking of the recapitulation theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory

You'll note that the part about development (from lower species to higher species) is now universally rejected, on the basis that many of the species diverged very early on, and share no ancestors which have common features. However, since birds most likely evolved from dinosaurs, it may be possible to halt or reactivate certain genes / pathways to express (or express more strongly) some of these atavistic features:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atavism