Board Thread:Fossil Fuels/@comment-3213993-20140914042918/@comment-1259419-20140914104326

I still have not fully read the paper. However, putting a tail to a chicken was not the focus on their paper. They introduced mutations to mouse embryos to mimic the loss of tails. They found 23 mutations that effected tail growth. The mutation effects are comparable to what we observe in the bird fossil record. Sounds promising.

If there are to experiments that have elongated the tail in chickens, it is because Larson and Horner are the only ones trying it. Before they can try to elongate the tail, they first have to understand how it was lost in the first place.