Product Description

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,/I>’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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #445808 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 246 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780525951049
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Jack Horner is regents professor of paleontology at Montana State University, curator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies, and probably the best-known paleontologist in the world. The recipient of a MacArthur “genius” award, he is the author of several books on dinosaurs, has helped create several documentaries, and does field work in Montana and Mongolia.

James Gorman is deputy science editor of The New York Times and editor of its Science Times section. He is the author of several books, including two previous books with Horner.

From AudioFile
Jack Horner's quest to hatch a dinosaur makes comparisons to JURASSIC PARK unavoidable--especially given that the paleontologist was an adviser to the film. Rather than extracting DNA from dino blood in a petrified mosquito, however, Horner wants to manipulate the embryo of a chicken and create a bird with teeth and a reptilian tail. Patrick Lawlor's narration of Horner's fascinating book is mostly enthusiastic and engaging, and he's comfortable with the scientific jargon. He does, however, show some insensitivity to the text, delivering banal sentences with a misplaced ebullience and failing to give proper emphasis to more climactic passages. These are not huge flaws, but they detract from an otherwise polished production. D.B. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Paleontology unlike anything you've seen before
This is a new and refreshing look at paleontology. While the book is nominally about turning a bird into a dinosaur, it is really about exciting new developments in paleontology. Horner shows how paleontology is expanding beyond digging for dinosaurs and moving into molecular biology and evolutionary development (evo-devo). Horner weaves several different fields of biology and shows how inter-disciplinary studies have revolutionized the field. He chronicles the work of Mary Schweitzer, who discovered red blood cells and (perhaps) cartilage in a 68-million year old T-rex, and Hans Larson, who is investigating ancestral genes in chicken embryos. I had followed news from paleontology relatively closely for a lay observer, but even I was shocked at some of the evo-devo research currently being done.

Hopefully, this book will inspire more students to go into biology. Turning a chicken into a dinosaur might be just the right hook to stimulate interest in these exciting new developments in evo-devo.

My one suggestion for the book is that because it covers so many fields, Horner ends up summarizing or quoting the works of others. He tells their stories effectively. But at some point, I wonder if perhaps it would have been better to produce a joint book, with articles from several of the contributors in the field. However, it is also useful to have one voice to guide the reader through the science. Since Horner is not a native to molecular sciences (his expertise is traditional paleontology), he is perhaps better suited to explaining the complexities of genetics to lay readers.

P.S. - Be sure to check out the Discovery Channel's documentary (Dinosaurs: Return To Life?) on this topic. It is a nice complement to the book.

How To Jumpstart Your Interest In Building A Dinosaur
Let me preface this review by clarifying that this is not the first time I've been exposed to this body of research. Watching the Discovery Channel special in early 2008, I became so fascinated with the material that I dug up as much information as I could and wrote a paper about the possibility of bringing back dinosaurs, mammoths, sabre-tooth cats, etc. Since then, I've followed the research closely -- particularly that of Dr. Larsson -- and when I began editing the paper again this year "for fun" and stumbled upon this book for preorder by chance, I was ecstatic.

I am also a long, longtime fan and admirer of Dr. Horner, who I remember fondly on my tv set as a child, talking to me about dinosaurs while I listened raptly.

The book itself tends to meander every which way, although all in the scope of the fossil paleontology and microbiology community, charting efforts all across the board (and globe) until now. I suppose if you're looking for a very specialized sort of thing, it'll seem scatterbrained, and the real "meat" of what you're dying for is in the last 1/3 of the book. But pay close attention, and be patient; you'll be glad you did. Dr. Horner and Mr. Gorman are great writers, and storytellers. This is a treat to read.

It also makes quite a stirring case in the end regarding ethical, financial, and philosophical issues; I believe this is no mistake on the author's part, someone who is clearly reaching out to the public for both their interest, their awe, their faith in the value of the work, and their $$$ investment. No doubt, Horner is beginning to understand the gravity of the work being done here: if he doesn't push for it, no one will. And for a guy who consulted all three JP films (read: one of the many, but probably most fervent, who want nothing more than to see and touch and smell the hot breathe of a dinosaur in their own lifetime -- myself included!), a guy who is embedded in the public worldview of paleontology itself (along with Robert T. Bakker): he'll get it done. Surely. To say nothing of Dr. Larsson's work, itself a major focus of the book, although it's not being done explicitly for this purpose (at least, publicly). This kind of research is what drove me to change my major to evolutionary biology/genetics. This is the kind of research *I* want to do, someday. If there's anyone who's got Dr. Horner's back, it's me.

In short, since this has been so long: GOOD DAMN BOOK. (Neanderthal-ized for efficiency). Dinonerds everywhere, buy it. Read it. Love it. It's nothing truly revolutionary, but it's a good story. And a good pitch. And worth your money.

A great idea stretched to fill 246 pages
There is a recurring problem with American authors: apparently a writer must produce a minimum number of pages in order to publish a book, even when the core ideas can only fill half of them. In this case the mix is: 30% description of the great idea on how to test evolution by "recreating" a dinosaur starting from a chicken; 50% repetitions of the same idea over and over; 20% irrelevant and boring descriptions of marginal details.
IMHO reducing everything down to a 100 pages would make this a perfect book.
It's like mixing half a glass of Bordeaux with half a glass of water. You can't avoid thinking how much better would be enjoying the pure wine, without the water!