Scientists want to bring 22 animals back from extinction

[Lief 🗽]

http://www.thejournal.ie/science-conference-de-extinction-840062-Mar2013/#slide-slideshow22

LAST WEEKEND AT a TEDx conference in Washington DC sponsored by National Geographic, scientists met to discuss which animals should be brought back from extinction. They also discussed the how, why and ethics of doing so.

They called it ‘de-extinction‘.

A cover story for this month’s National Geographic explains how de-extinction rests on a relatively simple premise: it involves taking old DNA samples, reassembling them into a full genome which is then injected into embryonic cells which have had their own DNA taken out, and then finding a suitable living surrogate to give birth.

...

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 into the wold – are the habitats in which they live available and do we know why they went extinct in the first place?

Even with the criteria, 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 wold and protecting them from poachers once they are there.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Dinosaurs, obviously.

[afleitch]

Ethically speaking, these species had their chance and failed. However I would make an exception, if they’re going to do this anyway, for animals we mass slaughtered to extinction.

[politicus]

Ethically speaking, these species had their chance and failed. However I would make an exception, if they’re going to do this anyway, for animals we mass slaughtered to extinction.

In most cases animal species became extinct due to humans destroying their habitat or releasing foreign predators in their area. Almost all extermination of animal species is due to human activity. So if they "failed" its because of us.

[dead0man]

Except for the millions of species that managed to go extinct before humans existed.

[Hatman 🍁]

Awesome. I think the actual ethical problem is, people will be less inclined for conservation if they think, "we can just resurrect them if they go extinct".

[Enderman]

I'd like to see stegosauruses come back.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

I'd like to see stegosauruses come back.

See, this guy's cool.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Dinosaurs dinosaurs dinosaurs dinosaurs

[Lief 🗽]

It's not possible to bring back dinosaurs. Their DNA would have degraded past the point of being viable millions of years ago already.

[Mopsus]

It's not possible to bring back dinosaurs. Their DNA would have degraded past the point of being viable millions of years ago already.

Wow. How sad is it that Darwinists are willing to sacrifice bringing back the dinosaurs just to make their precious "theory" look more credible?


...that was a joke, by the way...                                                                                               

[King]

We need to de-extinct the Neanderthals.  I could use some cavemen housepets to help me around the house.

[minionofmidas]

We need to de-extinct the Neanderthals.

That would actually be possible. And highly interesting. Whether it would also be desirable... ho hum.

[Хahar 🤔]

The obvious issue here would be genetic diversity.

[minionofmidas]

The obvious issue here would be genetic diversity.

Obviously. Unless you clone enough different individuals.

[Enderman]

I'd like to see stegosauruses come back.

See, this guy's cool.

Thank you

[Ban my account ffs!]

Ethically speaking, these species had their chance and failed. However I would make an exception, if they’re going to do this anyway, for animals we mass slaughtered to extinction.

Exactly.  We are responsible for the destruction of many keystone species in various ecosystems.  If we have the ability to bring them back to restore the ecosystem... we should.

Passenger pigeons comes to mind.. along with reintroduction of still existent species into their natural environments (bison, wolves, etc).

It's that way with many things.  For example, many will promote letting forest fires burn because fires are good for the ecology of many forests... not realizing that 90% of forest fires are started by humans, thus greatly raising the frequency of fire in any landscape.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Also, there are quite a few tree species that have been devastated by the introduction of non-native pests by humans.  It is our responsibility to remove those invasive species or to modify the trees to be resistant.

For example, the American chestnut is nearly extinct now and only a handful of trees have been found surviving past their juvenile state due to the chestnut canker blight we introduced from Asiatic chestnut wood back in 1904 I believe.

Right now we're cross breeding the American chestnut with Asian chestnut species to isolate the blight resistance the Asian chestnuts have and breed it into the American chestnut while still retaining 15/16ths American chestnut DNA (especially the physical characteristics of the tree, which are much larger than Asian chestnut species and was the largest tree in the eastern U.S. with specimens nearly 200 feet tall).

The problem is... oak trees serve as an alternate host and have taken over the spots where chestnuts once dominated (since they grew much faster and lived long just like the oaks).  So the prevalence of the blight has not decreased even as the tree species is all but wiped out.

The same thing is happening to firs in the Appalachians, Eastern White pines in the Great Lakes where cool, humid summers aid the spread of blister rust, and Western 5 needled pines like the western whtie pine or whitebark pine which is an extremely important food source to grizzly bears in Montana and Wyoming.

If we screwed it up, we should use science to fix it.

[bullmoose88]

20th anniversary of the movie too.

[Holmes]

I can't support this. It sound nice on paper but most likely not in practice.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

20th anniversary of the movie too.

Whoa, you're back!

[King]

I can't support this. It sound nice on paper but most likely not in practice.

Instead of using this technology to revive the extinct, it might be better (or more ethical) to use it to boost reproduction of endangered species.

[TDAS04]

Sounds like a project of mammoth proportions.