Scientists Want to Bring Some Animals Back From Extinction
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By Jennifer Welsh | Business Insider – 11 hours ago
On Friday at a National Geographic-sponsored TEDx conference, scientists met in Washington, D.C. to discuss which animals we should bring back from extinction. They also discussed the how, why, and ethics of doing so. They called it "de-extinction."
There are a few guidelines for which ancient species are considered, and sadly, dinosaurs are so long dead they aren't in the picture. Their DNA has long ago degraded, so researchers are fairly sure that Jurassic Park will never happen.
They chose the animals using the following criteria: Are the species desirable — do they hold an important ecological function or are they beloved by humans? Are the species practical choices — do we have access to tissue that could give us good quality DNA samples or germ cells to reproduce the species? And are they able to be reintroduced to the wild — are the habitats in which they live available and do we know why they went extinct in the first place?
This still leaves plenty of other animals on the table. The list of candidates is actually pretty long, considering. The cost of de-extinction varies by species but projects could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. Then there's also the cost of housing the animals once they are created, and re-introducing them into the wild and protecting them from poachers once they are there.
But, if you were the zoo that had that one Woolly mammoth or saber-toothed cat, these costs just might be worth it.
Here are 10 animals they are hoping to one day resurrect.
1. The mythical Aurochs is not a myth at all, actually. It is the ancestor of domestic cattle and lived throughout Europe, Asia, and North Africa. They died off in 1627.
2. The Dodo is known for being really dumb — but really it was just fearless because it evolved without any natural predators. Humans who arrived on its home island, Mauritius, took advantage of this and killed them all for food.
3. The Labrador Duck was always rare but disappeared between 1850 and 1870. Supposedly it didn't taste good, so it wasn't hunted extensively for food, so its extinction isn't fully explained.
4.The Ivory-billed Woodpecker lived in "? forests" of the southeastern United states, but there hasn't been a confirmed sighting of the bird since the 1940s. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology even offered a $50,000 reward for someone who could lead researchers to a living specimen.
5. Frozen carcasses of the Woolly Mammoth allow scientists access to well-preserved DNA from these prehistoric giant animals, related to elephants. The last isolated population of woolly mammoths lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until 4,000 years ago.
6. The Mastodon is an extinct species related to elephants that lived in North and Central America. They went extinct 12,000 years ago.
7. This extinct species of plains Zebra, the Quagga, once lived in South Africa. The last wild one was shot in 1870 and the last in captivity died in 1883.
8. The iconic Saber-toothed cat, Smilodon, is also on the list. It died out about 10,000 years ago due to climate changes at the end of the last Ice Age.
9. The Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, is the only marsupial to make the list. It lived in Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea until the 1960s.
10. The Caribbean monk seal was hunted to extinction for use as oil, and they were out-competed for fish (their main food source) by humans. The last individual was seen in 1952.
http://www.businessinsider.com/24-animals-for-de-extinction-2013-3#
On Friday at a National Geographic-sponsored TEDx conference, scientists met in Washington, D.C. to discuss which animals we should bring back from extinction. They also discussed the how, why, and ethics of doing so. They called it "de-extinction."
There are a few guidelines for which ancient species are considered, and sadly, dinosaurs are so long dead they aren't in the picture. Their DNA has long ago degraded, so researchers are fairly sure that Jurassic Park will never happen.
They chose the animals using the following criteria: Are the species desirable — do they hold an important ecological function or are they beloved by humans? Are the species practical choices — do we have access to tissue that could give us good quality DNA samples or germ cells to reproduce the species? And are they able to be reintroduced to the wild — are the habitats in which they live available and do we know why they went extinct in the first place?
This still leaves plenty of other animals on the table. The list of candidates is actually pretty long, considering. The cost of de-extinction varies by species but projects could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. Then there's also the cost of housing the animals once they are created, and re-introducing them into the wild and protecting them from poachers once they are there.
But, if you were the zoo that had that one Woolly mammoth or saber-toothed cat, these costs just might be worth it.
Here are 10 animals they are hoping to one day resurrect.
1. The mythical Aurochs is not a myth at all, actually. It is the ancestor of domestic cattle and lived throughout Europe, Asia, and North Africa. They died off in 1627.
2. The Dodo is known for being really dumb — but really it was just fearless because it evolved without any natural predators. Humans who arrived on its home island, Mauritius, took advantage of this and killed them all for food.
3. The Labrador Duck was always rare but disappeared between 1850 and 1870. Supposedly it didn't taste good, so it wasn't hunted extensively for food, so its extinction isn't fully explained.
4.The Ivory-billed Woodpecker lived in "? forests" of the southeastern United states, but there hasn't been a confirmed sighting of the bird since the 1940s. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology even offered a $50,000 reward for someone who could lead researchers to a living specimen.
5. Frozen carcasses of the Woolly Mammoth allow scientists access to well-preserved DNA from these prehistoric giant animals, related to elephants. The last isolated population of woolly mammoths lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until 4,000 years ago.
6. The Mastodon is an extinct species related to elephants that lived in North and Central America. They went extinct 12,000 years ago.
7. This extinct species of plains Zebra, the Quagga, once lived in South Africa. The last wild one was shot in 1870 and the last in captivity died in 1883.
8. The iconic Saber-toothed cat, Smilodon, is also on the list. It died out about 10,000 years ago due to climate changes at the end of the last Ice Age.
9. The Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, is the only marsupial to make the list. It lived in Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea until the 1960s.
10. The Caribbean monk seal was hunted to extinction for use as oil, and they were out-competed for fish (their main food source) by humans. The last individual was seen in 1952.
http://www.businessinsider.com/24-animals-for-de-extinction-2013-3#
Comments
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From http://community.allhiphop.com/discussion/491750/attack-of-the-clones-no-sifo-dyas#latest? crying about overpopulation, but wanna clone muthafuckaz.... ain't that a ?
Ahhhhhhhh......
Where was I ???????
Oh yes.........
This leads directly into another question...............
Bringing Them Back to Life
The revival of an extinct species is no longer a fantasy.
But is it a good idea?
On July 30, 2003, a team of Spanish and French scientists reversed time. They brought an animal back from extinction, if only to watch it become extinct again.
De-extinction is now within reach.
“It’s gone very much further, very much more rapidly than anyone ever would’ve imagined,” says Ross MacPhee, a curator of mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “What we really need to think about is why we would want to do this in the first place, to actually bring back a species.”
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/species-revival/zimmer-text
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? around bring T rex back and ? everybody
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Yeah I am for it, though probably not the smartest thing to do, we would have to make habitats for most of them. Maybe we will be back in the natural order sooner than expected.
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The hole gets deeper and deeper.
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But why bring it back? Just to watch it graze and ? ? To see it living life? Or is it just to see if they can resurrect ancient things? I've wondered about it before, would the state of it's mind when it went extinct affect how it lived now? Like if in the future science was adept enough to resurrect a caveman, what kind of mind would it be created having? The mind's babies are born with now aren't the same kind of mind's of previous generations. So would a caveman's mind even be able to cope with today's mind?
Lots of questions. -
And there's still children dying of hunger..
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Dinosaurs is a hoax, thats why tjey cant bring it back
Was never here,for all you science fiction consumers
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DMTxCannabis wrote: »And there's still children dying of hunger..
Well a Mastadon would provide a lot of meat for them.
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Bringing back big-ass elephants and birds, but if I lose my leg tomorrow, I'm gimping on plastic and carbon fiber. Seems legit.
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Bad example. Prosthetics evolve and improve pretty quickly. That's not exactly an area where people are sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
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I wonder if humans will ever face a dodo-like extinction...
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Humans ? around and drove these animals to extinction in the first place for the silliest of reasons. Entire species of birds merked for their pretty feathers. They will not be the same, but their argument is that the ecosystem would be better off with them then without them. idk. We shall see. I don't see what the need of a carrier pigeon is when other pigeons already took their spot.
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Come on saber tooth tiger.
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GTFOH. How about coming up with a way to make healthy food and water available to those who cant afford it. Everyday were bombarded with news stories telling us whats not good for us to ingest. Eating healthy is not cheap. The price of stuff you see at the whole foods is rediculous. People just struggling to survive cant afford these foods. I still want the 40 acres and a mule my ancesters were promised. Bringing back extinct animals, C'MON SON.
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So we just gon' act like Jurassic Park never happened?
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Revive the Neanderthals.
So, humans can roast them on national TV. -
Crazy how fast and far science and the human mind are taking us. I don't know if it is a quote or not, but almost everything we imagined or written about or seen in movies, will come to light.
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Bring back giant hairy elephants...
*Watches unheard of virus/fungus that went dormant because its mammoth/mastodon food source died out come back and wipe out a modern man who is no longer immune to it*
? boys in lab coats need to stop playing with nature on that end and focus on human evolution/improvement.The Lonious Monk wrote: »Bad example. Prosthetics evolve and improve pretty quickly. That's not exactly an area where people are sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
What I'm saying is, if you can clone a big-ass mammal back into existence, there should be no reason I shouldn't have a new flesh-and-blood leg. -
? idiots. Nature is the greatest manager of this universe. yet, they keep ? with nature like it won't respond with some ? up ?
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? idiots. Nature is the greatest manager of this universe. yet, they keep ? with nature like it won't respond with some ? up ?
But we part of nature though.
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I hope they don't bring back dinosaurs
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I don't see a dinosaur having a chance if they were alive today. Humans would ? them to make Dino bags. We're smaller and weaker then other species, yet we have them in our zoos.
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Just wanna see them of these animals come back. don't care if they try to bring em back to their natural habitat
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I really want to see an American Lion or like T-Rex in person.
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FuriousOne wrote: »
employees and management are two different things tho. You might be help desk support but you definitely not CEO, therefore you don't make decisions that affect the company worldwide This is what I'm saying...there's a reason that nature saw it fit that these creatures went extinct.
In my studies, playing ? never had a good outcome...
Is anybody considering viral mutations that can occur?
