Friday, April 25, 2008

How do you make prehistoric buffalo wings?


First, you catch your Tyrannosaurus Rex!

I'm delighted to read of a study by Dr. John Asara and his colleagues at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.

Dinosaurs may have been more closely related to chickens than reptiles, according to a report released on Thursday.

. . .

Molecular analysis, or genetic sequencing, of a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein from the dinosaur's femur confirms that T. rex shares a common ancestry with chickens, ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators, scientists said.

“Last year we just made a very loose connection based on (protein) sequence identification and we had no reptiles," Asara said. "And now with very high probability we can make the connection of T. rex to birds."

. . .

"We determined that T. rex, in fact, grouped with birds--ostrich and chicken--better than any other organism that we studied," he said. "We also showed that it groups better with birds than modern reptiles, such as alligators and green anole lizards."


The mind boggles at the thought of a six- to seven-ton chicken, forty feet long from nose to tail, with a five-foot-long head, and jaws equipped with rows of jagged teeth!




Hmmm . . . I wonder how you deep-fry that sucker? Would Colonel Sanders' secret blend of eleven herbs and spices improve the flavor? How many serving-size pieces would KFC be able to cut from it?

(And just think of the meat on that drumstick!)



Peter

2 comments:

  1. Back in my college days, which weren't really all that long ago, I had a biology lecture course and I was a bit prone to falling asleep in it.

    I'm head's down on the desk one day when the prof is talking about evolution and dinosaurs and asking students for decedents of them. I awake from my slumber, raise my hand, and blurt out "Chickens!"

    Laughter ensued... then the prof explained that I was actually right, and I went back to sleep.

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  2. I'm reminded of the film "Young Guns" and the scene where they all take peyote. The character 'Dirty Steve' is running around shooting wildly and exclaiming: "Did you see the size of that chicken?!"

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