How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn’t Have to be Forever

(Dutton) Jack Horner, who advised Steven Spielberg on Jurassic Park, and James Gorman reveal how scientists can manipulate a chicken embryo to a hatch a small dinosaur — a chickenosaurus — without changing a single gene. Horner claims it is possible to grow a real, live dinosaur without using prehistoric DNA. The authors discuss how the chickenosaurus can uncover mysteries about evolution and how this research can also provide important insight into human birth defects. Horner is Regents professor of paleontology at Montana State University and curator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies. Gorman is deputy science editor of The New York Times and editor of its Science Times section.