Entrepreneur - In a potentially terrifying case of life imitating art, the renowned paleontologist who served as the inspiration forJurassic Parkprotagonist Dr. Alan Grant is spearheading genetic research that could engineer dinosaurs back into existence within the next five to 10 years, he says.
While Dr. Jack Horner, who has consulted on all fourJurassicfilms, initially believed the key to recreating the prehistoric creatures lied in working with ancient DNA strands, further study about DNA degradation over time has since ruled out that possibility.
Instead, a group of scientists at Harvard and Yale have turned their eye to -- wait for it -- the modern-day chicken. “Of course, birds are dinosaurs,"Horner toldPeoplemagazine. "So we just need to fix them so they look a little more like a dinosaur."
In an attempt to reverse evolution, the team has already made significant strides in mutating chickens back to the very creatures from which they descended. If that wasn’t enough genetic splicing and dicing, Harvard scientistsattempted a similar feat recentlyby inserting the genes of a woolly mammoth into elephants in order to recreate the extinct beasts. Whoa baby.
Alright...would being able to see actual dinosaurs today be cool? Sure. Should we continue down this path? Absolutely not. Literally five movies have been made that show how bad of an idea this is. The dude spearheading this whole revolution CONSULTED ON FOUR OF THE FIVE FILMS MADE. And he still says "nah, we can do it. This will be fine." And where does it start? A chicken...you want to know how the world ends? It's not gonna be something that our president tweets out that starts a world war, it's not gonna be from mosquitoes carrying a deadly virus, it's not a zombie apocalypse, nope. A chicken will be the death of us all. You heard it here first. @Traceahamilton
At least we have Jeff Goldblum on our side...