Kristina, Liz and Katherine are enchanted, and I have to admit I'm getting there too. He's been their hero since childhood, a palaeontologist truly deserving of the title "maverick", as he describes slicing up his own museum's fossils in order to eliminate unnecessary dinosaurs other researchers have been so eager to assign as separate species. You would be surprised how many of your favourite dinosaurs he has proven are just juveniles of other species. Like we tell the kids at the Forest, if you saw a tadpole next to a frog for the first time would you ever know they're the same species?
Someone asks him where he studied. Another pause and the hint of a sigh.
"I studied at Montana State University for seven years," (muffled sounds of awe) "I flunked every class I ever took. I have severe dyslexia."
Silence. Brains taking it in. So that's why all the pauses.
Still, he manages to be an absolutely enthralling speaker, and by the time he got onto Chickenosaurus I was the caricature of a child on the edge of their seat, hands gripping the sides, leaning in, breathing softly. Birds evolved form dinosaurs, raptor-types. As fledgling embryos, chickens, and all other birds, begin with some typically dino characteristics, such as teeth and a long tail. At some point during their development, specific genes switch on to curtail these features; the tail bones are fused, the fingers are docked into wings, and a chick is born. What Horner proposes, and is already beginning, is to find those genes and switch them off, effectively reversing sections of evolution to bring back creatures with features not seen in 65 million years. Another researcher has already had success culturing teeth inside a chicken beak, and spurned on by this, Horner and his colleagues hope to hatch a full chickenosaurus in the very near future.
So it would seem the Jurassic Forest has taken over my life. I should be writing my thesis, but I consider days not working at the Forest as more of "days off". It's subtler than that too, it's like the Forest is a part of my "new life", as I prepare fully for the move to Vancouver. I don't do the things I used to do. I haven't written anything sciencey for a while, I haven't updated this blog very regularly. I haven't even visited the BBC Focus forum for a while, and I love Focus and the folks there. I have the opportunity to write a review of a book my office mate wrote about rough diamonds, and I haven't even attempted it yet. Why would I not want these things to be a part of my new life too?
Then again, maybe it's because my job means I have to get up before 8 most days, and frankly I'm not used to that.
