05-07-2014, 10:59 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-08-2014, 04:44 AM by Administrator.)
Revival of the species
Another way of preserving the species is actually by reviving them. There is a lot of controversy around this - some people are saying that the resources spent into the revival of species can actually be spent into protecting the existing ones that are endangered, especially since the “reviving” is a lot more demanding process. Moreover, some of the species died due to the loss of their living habitat, which still wasn’t recovered, and the whole project could be in vain.
However, the idea sounds great and interesting nonetheless, because if the project of reviving is successful, not only we might see some recently extinct species like passenger pigeons, but we might see some ancient ones like mammoths. Yes, mammoths…
One way of reviving the species is by cloning them. There are several ways to do this, but basically the DNA of an extinct species must be isolated from what they’ve left (like frozen tissues, for example). The next thing is to insert the DNA into the cells of closest living relatives which will be surrogate parents. If the whole nucleus of an extinct species is found, we can completely replace it with the one in the egg. However, if there are only the pieces of DNA, they can be replaced with the ones in the existing genomes. This might produce species similar to the one that is extinct but not 100% the same. It should suffice though, because we are talking about revival.
Important thing to note is that enough number of organisms should be cloned in the start from different pieces of the extinct animal’s DNA in order to make a viable population.
Cloning is not the only way revival could be achieved – selective breading might also do the trick. In the case of aurochs, the ancestor of domestic cattle, its traits could be determined by taking the sample of its tissues, and then existing cattle might be selectively bread in order to “accumulate” the traits of extinct animal in small group of individuals. This way, every new generation would be more similar to aurochs.
Another way of preserving the species is actually by reviving them. There is a lot of controversy around this - some people are saying that the resources spent into the revival of species can actually be spent into protecting the existing ones that are endangered, especially since the “reviving” is a lot more demanding process. Moreover, some of the species died due to the loss of their living habitat, which still wasn’t recovered, and the whole project could be in vain.
However, the idea sounds great and interesting nonetheless, because if the project of reviving is successful, not only we might see some recently extinct species like passenger pigeons, but we might see some ancient ones like mammoths. Yes, mammoths…
One way of reviving the species is by cloning them. There are several ways to do this, but basically the DNA of an extinct species must be isolated from what they’ve left (like frozen tissues, for example). The next thing is to insert the DNA into the cells of closest living relatives which will be surrogate parents. If the whole nucleus of an extinct species is found, we can completely replace it with the one in the egg. However, if there are only the pieces of DNA, they can be replaced with the ones in the existing genomes. This might produce species similar to the one that is extinct but not 100% the same. It should suffice though, because we are talking about revival.
Important thing to note is that enough number of organisms should be cloned in the start from different pieces of the extinct animal’s DNA in order to make a viable population.
Cloning is not the only way revival could be achieved – selective breading might also do the trick. In the case of aurochs, the ancestor of domestic cattle, its traits could be determined by taking the sample of its tissues, and then existing cattle might be selectively bread in order to “accumulate” the traits of extinct animal in small group of individuals. This way, every new generation would be more similar to aurochs.
![[+]](https://www.biotechnologyforums.com/images/netpen-pro/collapse_collapsed.png)