Life with find a way...or we will find one for it.
For the first time in history, an extinct animal has been resurrected by science. Granted, the animal had only been extinct for eight years, and skin samples were available, but this still marks a great stride forward. According to the Telegraph, DNA from the Pyrenean ibex, which had recently been hunted to extinction, was inserted into the eggs of domestic goats. The article states:
"Sadly, the newborn ibex kid died shortly after birth due to physical defects in its lungs. Other cloned animals, including sheep, have been born with similar lung defects.
But the breakthrough has raised hopes that it will be possible to save endangered and newly extinct species by resurrecting them from frozen tissue."
Last year, scientists mapped the woolly mammoth's genome, and I say we get Weta to design us some awesome saddles so we can get straight to riding these suckers. They can be the new hummer!
4 comments:
That sort of thing is why we shouldn't clone people any time soon. There'd be so many human babies dying horribly.
Maybe we'll get to see T-rexes during our lifetimes?
I mean, you must be thinking it too, right?
wow, crazy! this kind of science can be so dangerous, but it's good to see people working toward something good.
of course, under ideal circumstances we wouldn't be causing other species to become extinct in the first place...
I wonder why the cloning process screws up the lungs. Weird.
Anyway, it's nice to see this science used for something other than establishing a freakish dystopia.:)
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