How to build a dinosaur

by John R. Horner

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, weve all seen dinosaursor at least somebodys 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 whats 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 moleculesproteins that survived 68 million yearsfrom a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil excavated by Horner. These proteins show that T. rex