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Coming Back Soon... The Tasmanian Tiger?
adoll writes: "Melbourne's The Age is reporting that DNA has been extracted from a 110 year old Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) bone. Scientists are now wondering if genes can be implanted into eggs of an existing species and born to surrogate mothers (numbat and Tasmanian devil are mentioned as possible hosts). The last tiger died in Hobart, Tasmania on September 9, 1936. It was believed the tigers were hunted to extinction (CD: Thems was good eatin) on Tasmania, but unconfirmed sighting have persisted to this day".
One? It's great to bring back an extinct species, but it kinda sucks if there's only one of them.
Dyolf Knip
OK, they implant the genes into a new cell, and hope it turns into the critter. However, that's utterly ignoring the mitochondrial DNA, which also makes the animal unique. Unless they have that, *and* remove all the mitochondrial DNA from the new cell, what they'll get is an erzatz animal, one that may or may not be close enough to the original to give the desired results.
:(
This is the same reason why, even though frozen Wooly Mammoths can be found in Siberia, they have yet to make a new living mammoth. Jurassic Park totally ignored this whole point, which, to me, made the whole premise rather lame
Lemon curry?
Lets hope if they do decide to bring them back, they decide also to make it illegal to hunt. Otherwise you mine as well just be making them to eat. And that would not be bringing back a species that was killed by us. That would just be bringing back the Tasmanian buffet.
Also what happened to Natural Selection? Even if they are a great species, lets not try to recreate Jurassic Park by bringing back things that are dead. I say leave nature alone and use that money towards saving us from falling into the dead species category.
Gizmo
What about the moral dilemma surrounding these actions?
What if something went wrong while reviving the species? DNA being modified during the cloning progress to name an example.
We would be literally playing god. The species died off because nature intended it to( even if it was hunted to death we are still a part of a larger cycle)
And if we could do it for this species, itd open up the possibility for other, less desireable species to be recreated.
I think we should think this through before throwing our technology around reviving extinct species.
The founder effect, which is the sharp reduction in the genetic variety of a population when it arises from a very small group of individuals (Iceland is an excellent example), has a great potential to be a problem here. The cheetah, for example, went through a bottleneck at some point in the past (no one knows why). Individual cheetahs are so genetically similar that organs (such as skin) can be transplanted between individuals with little or no rejection.
Unless samples from multiple thylacines can be retrieved and successfully used to clone infants, these animals will always be sucsceptible to being wiped out by a plague (since they all have the same genotype.)
And that's to say nothing of the issues with captive-raised animals that have none of the instincts that their wild counterparts would. For example, falcons that have imprinted on humans (and think they're human as a result) cannot be released into the wild -- it would be disastrous. They would never fear humans and would be unable to hunt to feed themselves.
i am a soviet space shuttle
The australian TV show, "the science program", described this idea as complete and utter rubish last night.
:)
They say that with current technology the scientists are "dreaming" to think such a thing as possible, and anytime in the near future.
I would love this to be possible, but i am very very doubtful..
anyway, a dodo bird would be alot nicer to re-create
stuff
Then again, there is some debate over whether the thylacine is truly extinct.
evanchik.net
To my opinion extinction is a part of the way of life ... why should life be altered; somebody could get hurt if it gets out of hand!
...
I am not only thinking about the tiger but if it gets done with the tiger it can be also done with other species
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
A tasmanian tiger would be cool, but personally I'd rather see the giant wombats mentioned at the end of the article.
how in the hell is this considered controversial? even the sternest luddite would agree that we wiped them out and it is our moral obligation.. NO survival emperitive to replace the species. We wipe out species left and right and expect to not suffer greiviosly as a result? Even if we could wipe out something as terrible as, say influenza, there would be drastic consequences. Even if the only result was longer lifspan for the 6 billion people on the earth ready to procreate 12 billion more. Humans can not live on human biomass alone.... Humans must have other species.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Who is this chrisd fscker and why does he feel the need for embedding his tasteless editorials in this story? (ie, "Thems was good eatin")
In my opnion playing god is just fine as long as you play by his rules. Bringing back an animal that we made the mistake of wiping out in the first place is OK, as it is our way of correcting mistakes of the past. Genetic engineering for the sake of vanity and other sinful motives would not be OK.
To me this sounds wrong:
we kill them off, then we bring them back to life again?
Sounds like asking for trouble in my opinion, still.. I suppose it is fair to give them another chance, but in the famous words
"no sir i dont like it"
Microsoft IIS is to webserving as KFC is to healthy eating
I am very excited about this development.
Being part of generation-X. I was not born early enough to have participated in the *first* exctinction of the thylacine!
This way we get to bring it back to life, raise about 1000 of them, and then hunt them into extinction again! YAY!
And. Since we have moore's law, 18 months from now we will be able to make twice as many tigers for 1/2 the cost!
Man I love this stuff.
I want to get one as a pet! I will be getting laid BIG TIME at that point!
Imagine if you had a beowolf cluster of these things!
Kevin
The possibilities that we find with new technology and science are endless. If this project is successful, it is hard to predict where the following research will go. Perhaps, in bringing back older and older mamals. then what next.... Jurrasic Park?
It is very exciting to me. Sometimes a bit scary. But none the less, it will be interesting at the very least.
kha0z
Master of ImportChaos.com
Whoa! Take a look at the pictures. This looks nothing like a tiger, more like a dog. Is it a tiger in name only, or does it actually belong to the cat family?
moral debate aside, who is willing to believe that this type of research is conducted primarily to allow the richest folks the world contains to become immortal? someone pays someone to find this stuff out... why else would you want to know?
Heh, and all you guys laughed at Jurassic Park
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
That'll be great, until the black guy and the fat man on the take get eaten. And then they'll start breeding and develope language skills...
Someone hates these cans.
Just a thought: More than 90% of the species that ever lived on this planet are dead.
We didn't kill them. . .
In this case, we made the species go extinct, so perhaps we have some responsibility to recreate the species, but I'd rather see resources spent on something else like curing diseases, etc.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
I think this whole situation was put most elegantly by a scientist I can't remember =) concerning the gaur (a wild old world cow, one of which had been born from an antelope or some such at a zoo). He said something to the effect of, " I want to save the gaur, the one that walks through the forest, interacts and mates with other gaurs, dies, and has a leak tree grow from it's carcass. That thing out there (the one born at the zoo), is not the gaur I want to save."
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
But even it is possible, what kind of world would it start to live in?
It would be alone, unless many other pieces of DNA are recovered
It's natural habitat has dramatically changed -- it's basically not there anymore, would also have to be 're-created'
But the biggest point: we can't even save other 'trivial' species from extinction, as the 'regular' tiger, many many birds, etc. I think it would be more important, for now, to save what we still have.
Ok, i have seen this movie...
something park , i think....
Cruise TT
Do you even have a point?
Bring back something useful, instead of a pest.
If this works maybe we should consider being a little more proactive in collecting DNA samples, there are thousands (millions?) of creatures out there on the verge of being wiped out and even though we might succeed in saving some of them a lot of them are going to go extinct, before that happens maybe we should create a Noah's arc of sorts made up of DNA samples of as many individuals of those specicies in risk as we can before we lose them entirely.
Should they really do this ?
The tasmanian tiger was not fit enough to survive the treat of another more dangerous species.
This species was the infamous Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
It is the usual ecologist point of view that men is an evil intruder in the eco system and should stay apart of it whereever possible.
But this is utter nonsense.
We are a part of nature. And, yes, we are predators that means that we KILL species. And species which aren't fit enough to avoid this treat will be annihilated.
But this IS nature. This is not "artificial" or even "bad".
Some people will no rant "Behold we'll destroy the whole world, the wikked evil ones we are !!!"
But this is nonsense, too. It's not so easy to destroy the nature. There were worse catastrophes in the history of the world which didn't. These eco-freaks are overrating human power exactly the same way as these tech-gonzo dreaming of terraforming liveless planets etc. do.
I think this species should be kept dead.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
This Tour of Tasmania: Tasmania Tiger Web page shows the last photograph of this tiger in captivity and a video clip. Both picture and video clip are black and white though. The wide mouth shot amazes me. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
He has written several articles (many available online) describing some truly intimidating marsupials from our past including marsupial tigers, wolves, lions and sabre-tooths.
So, it may be that even in Tasmania there still lurks that striped tiger.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
It will be a vain attempt at restoring something we destroyed, in a futile struggle to erase our poor decisions. We will feel good and proud because we have cleared our bad name with mother nature. Tazmania will never again become a suitable place for tigers to live: We want to live there, and it's a proven fact that there isn't room for the both of us! And we will achieve nothing but a warm fuzzy feeling for those willing to believe that something useful has been accomplished.
What's in a Sig?
Jurassic Park, here we go!!!
This is my first first post. Sniff, I am so proud of myself. :)
- Tasmania has a long history of electing Greens so in 1998 our "major parties" put aside their pretentions of difference and attempted to send the Greens extinct by reducing the number of state poiticians.
- More than fifty years before the last thylacine died in captivity, the last full blood Tasmanian aborigine died, a race that had been isolated from the rest of humanity for more than ten thousand years.
- Thirty years ago, the Tasmanian environmental movement was galvanised by the ultimately unsuccessful campaign to stop the then all-powerful Hydro Electic Commission from building a dam which would drown the remote and ultimately iconic original Lake Pedder. Proposals to drain the dam and restore the original lake persist.
- A decade later, a similar campaign against the proposed Gordon below Franklin dam was successful and South West Tasmania gained World Heritage recognition, including the aboriginal art in Fraser Cave named for our then Prime Minister in an attempt to enhance his environmental awareness.
- In the last few months it looks as though another predator, the fox, might be trying to get established in Tasmania. I'm sure I heard a report of some more recent evidence that they may indeed have a breeding population which defies thinking about given today's level of environmental awareness.
- The Tasmanian government recently retreated from its undertaking to support the outcome of the Tasmania Together process with respect to the unpopular logging of old growth forests to support huge (by Tasmanian standards earnings from wood chip export.
- On the other side of Bass Strait, there is growing environmental opposition to the Basslink Project to connect the Tasmanian electrical grid to the Australian mainland grid.
Now I just have to wonder whether the foxes or the politicians will utilise cloning first? My own fondest memory of Tassie was diving with dolphins at Flinders Island, a day I would like to clone.-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
It might well prove possible to grow a viable tiger with mitochondria from the most nearly-related marsupial available. (Probably the Tasmanian Devil)
As for the Mammoths, since the specimens are frozen, I would expect the mitochondria to have remained at least as intact as the nucleii. It's not going to be easy, but then again, neither was cloning a sheep for the first time.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The actual reason that they were hunted out was that they were supposedly killing farmers' sheep, so a bounty was put on them. It was fairly successful that.
It was a stupid movie. Jeff Goldbloom spewing off about how chaos theory meant that they were all going to get eaten alive was a riot!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
A man in New York reported seeing Elvis at Broadway and 69th St. The man was only slightly intoxicated, but appeared to have a white powder around his nostrils. Officials believe the source to be reliable and look forward to sightings from other such people.
... er ... not be ... reached for comment.
... its extinct.
... my bad ... its still alive, we didn't ever go to the moon, and olestra chips didn't really make people shit bricks.
In Arizona two elderly ladies told our sources second cousin thrice removed that yesterday they were abducted by three aliens in tutu's and made to dance to the New York Symphony Orchestra's rendition of Tommy, who were reported to be performing live. The New York Symphony representitive could
In Texas three hillbil^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlocals reported that road kills are down by three percent from last year and appealed to the nation to start "hittn' dem darn critters" for the "sek of der chillin'" They blame the shortage on UFO sightings, and on over hunting of the local populations by Elvis (See Above)
Yes guys
Oh wait
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
I thought like this too, until I asked my girlfriend what she thought. She said that in practical terms, we could spend an awful lot more (time, money, take your pick) figuring out how to bring back a single species when the same time/money could save dozens of species we haven't yet made extinct.
If this grows beyond scientific vapourware, then the question becomes "what industy do we do try now?". Would we ensure that we laboured towards resurrecting species that still have their own habitat in existence, or, perhaps more likely, new types of meat or animal products (I hear a dodo steak sets you back quite a bit in the best restaurants)?
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
The Australians hunted the Aboriginals until they were extinct on Tasmania, are they going to re-introduce them too?
It's only because this animal is an icon made popular by Warner Bros. would we even do this. Hell I don't see anyone trying to bring back Obus Arenicium. Somehow I expect people think this thing will pop out of a test tube and cutefully say "aragh aragh araghfmmmmmm" true to it's Warner Bros. counterpart.
The Wired ran the story quite some time ago (Sep. 13, 1999). Slashdot had a go at it as well.
Oh, yes, that's what they all say, ooh, aah... But later there's the running... and the screaming...
-and-
Must go faster.
Stupid question, but if we (species-collective) can't even clone sheep right, what makes us think we can do this? What makes us think we should do this? I say we should stick with sheep. Sheep don't have huge fangs and if they die, then you've got mutton for dinner for the next three weeks. Bonuses all around. Just my opinion.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
You might have to check me out on this, but I'm pretty sure the Tasmanian Tiger went extinct many thousands of years ago. What they are talking about is the Tasmanian Wolf, which only went extinct in the 20th Century.
It should be sobering to realize that in the time span that this species might be "brought back", many thousands species will likely be going extinct. We could probably save a few of them with the money and media attention expended on this project. Of course, we could save a few of them with the money and attention expended on Harry Potter or Britney Spears.
That's not to say that this project isn't worthwhile. It is scientifically interesting, and it's a challenge. But if we want to do anything about extinctions, we have to start elsewhere: with ecology and conservation. In fact, bringing back a species without bringing back their habitat is only half the job anyway.
Even though they have the DNA they are using another animal to host it and this isn't that safe. they are trying to bring back an extinct one that will now be similar but different because of the process used to re-create it. Playing god and creating a new animal is bad karma
Why do the kids in West Side Story have to join a street gang if they can afford $70 Gap khakis?
OHHHH bugger mate, A Tasmanian Tiger took my baby!
All speling, factual, tact, and/or grametical errers be the result of netwerk interpherance or# transmition ererrs.
As long as the scientists alter the genes somewhat to make the tiger unable to synthesize certain ammino acids. We don't want these things just running around rampant, what with cloning new and all.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
Thylacines were not hunted as food; they were deliberately exterminated by European immigrants because Thylacines killed domestic sheep.
For more information on Thylacines, check out this article by the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service.
It wouldn't hurt the Slashdot editors to show a little maturity by researching their flippant comments before making bogus statements. Trying some professional journalism would do wonders for Slashdot's credibility.
All about me
them sure look much kewler than these half-dogs! :-P
I want my five assed monkey~!
The "point" that the above poster was saying Jurrasic Park missed was the issue of mitochondrial DNA, not holes in the regular DNA being filled in by frog DNA.
Though I'd have to ask -- just how different is mitochondrial DNA across similar species? Don't all mitochondria do approximately the same thing?
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
While most were killed because of the supposed dager to livestock they posed some were actully hunted for their meat. I have seen a menu reprinted in a reference book that listed Tasmanian Tiger on the menu.
no, its the tiger which went extinct this in Australlia in the 20th century. Geez, don't you ever watch the Crocodile Hunter? They went looking for it (rather weak attempt).
Same thing- The thylacine was a marsupial predator with a roughly wolfish build and tiger-style stripes, so both "Tasmanian wolf" and "Tasmanian tiger" have been used as common names for the animal (which probably died out in the 20th century).
I agree! However being a follower type all my life I nominate you to lead by example. Jumping off a skyscraper might be thrilling till the inevitable splat. Romans prefer to slit their wrists in a bath of steaming hot water, pleasantly passing on to the forever sleep.
Oh wait you didn't mean yourself! I see now, extinction only for the vermin you have deemed unfit to breathe the same air you do. Now that's actually a very old idea, I remeber watching an old newreel from the forties about racial and personal superiority. How ever it was difficult for me to understand for I don't speak german.
Please forgive my spelling. MS Word's spell checker dosen't work worth a damn on Linux.
I want to bring back the six-foot tall, carnivourous kangaroo. Now that's something I'm willing to pay money to see.
Why are we doing this? The thalycine was a predator, meaning it hunted down prey and ate them. My bet is that if given the chance, they would've killed all of us.
Let 'em stay dead.
I think we should bring back as many of these extinct animals as possible, if only to learn a little more about them. If we can't make a breeding pair, we'll at least have a much better idea of what they were like originally. Quality photos would be almost as priceless as the animals. I have no desire to see a bunch of dinasaurs running around eating cows and people, but more recent species would be very interesting.
All of this crap about "god" is really sad. Letting religion anywhere near science goes against the restraining order. Doesn't anyone watch the Simpsons anymore?
YOU stupid troll. At least I have the decency to sign my posts. Pray tell what is it that you find offensive about the link. I'd ask you in an e-mail, but it is difficult to do so with an ANONYMOUS COWARD.
You are the offensive one, making insulting remarks about a website that is obviously beyond you in matters of taste, humor and intelligence.
Moron.
evanchik.net
Check this sitec tr um1.html at the Sydney Saturday Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0111/24/spectrum/spe
for a better news article, and this website
http://www.austmus.gov.au/
at the Australian Museum (where the Thylacine research is taking place) for links on the project. Another factoid: even though the Tasmanians exterminated the Thylacine, its image graces their regional beer, Cascade. Go figure.
Ants are still subject to natural selection. They have evolved these stratagies through a Darwinian process, due to the selective advantage. The point I am trying to make is that we humans have evolved beyond a point of conforming to the rules of natural selection, and are now applying our own selection criteria on many aspects of the planet.
I'm still waiting for an explanation of how these ants could have "evolved" their peculiar form of agriculture. Doubtless you picture an early ant discovering that the fungi were good to eat (sorry, eating the fungi and then breeding), and then another ant starting carrying it back to the nest, and then another ant discovering that if it dribbled on the fungus it grew more.
Obvious, really. How could anyone consider it unlikely?
...or, of course, we could use the scientific method - look for the simplest explanation. Unfortunately that involves God, and I know from experiance that /.ers are generally rabid atheists. Or, worse, believers in Dawkins the Scientaster...
Forget the tigers... they said years ago that we were going to get Mastodons, and I haven't seen a single one.
WHERE IS MY MASTODON?!?!
If we killed them off, and then we bring them back, won't they be mad?
Greenies keep saying that the environment is changing too quickly for animals to adapt to it, and they're going extinct as a result. Whether this is true or false, why do they keep trying to fund preservation programs like this one, restoring dead species to the Earth.
I thought biodiversity was one of the things they like to promote. Why don't we spend a few decades splicing together some new animal species, more keenly adapted to the world as it is now. Frogs that love smog, for example, or insects with two heads. Anything the learning-disabled kids of the world can invent.
If we create as many animal species per day as we lose, then in a few hundred years things will be back to "normal," the ecosystem won't be quite so "damaged," and everyone will be happy.
Of course, by that point, greenies will most certainly find something else to complain about. Maybe earthshine makes the moon bleach faster. Who knows?
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
IF they do successfully clone a Tassie Tiger what are they going to do with it? Realease it into the wild?
Nuh uh!! I don't think so!
A lot of Tasmanians are going to strongly object to this (being primarily a rural community), and the Thylacine will be quickly hunted back into extinction.
So what are the options for the poor old Tasmanian Tiger? A life in captivity perhaps?
Um yeah that sounds real nice for the little guy :0P
Why are people so unkind? - Kamahl
Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?
before I can kill me one? I mean, that is hunting!
I'd prefer to assume that all are acting in good faith, but it gets all too easy to suggest that reports/success of the reestablishment of the thylacine could help get the authorities off the hook on Tasmanian environmental issues.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
I must confess that as much as I would like to see live and viable thylacines roaming the Tasmanian countryside once more, it isn't going to happen. This is why I find the efforts of both clone-happy scientists and the 'Thylacines aren't really dead' cranks more than a little bemusing.
The cranks have not managed to produce one shred of irrefutable verifiable evidence that thylacines are not completely extinct in over 60 years. This is despite all of the 'unconfirmed sightings', and alleged samples from 'nest sites' and 'spoor', which have all turned out either to be something else or indeterminate. There are even claims by bushmen that they have actually shot and killed living Thylacines, but naturally (as with all good conspiracies) somehow it has been contrived that the corpse was not produced for scientific examination (through the hunters' fear of prosecution, or failure to recognise the significance until after the fact, etc.)
And as for the scientists, even if they do manage to create the technology to clone a thylacine, there isn't enought preserved thylacine DNA to produce a viable self-sustaining population of the animals.
The reason I am so bemused by these efforts is that they both avoid with almost childlike vigour having to accept that these remarkable beasts are forever dead, gone and never to return, and it is all our fault.
Until we own up to the fact that we wipe out entire species with regular abandon, we will never be able to stop this human-driven extinction process. If we persist with this 'if we wipe them out, we can just clone them again later' attitude, then there's really no incentive to preserve what we have now.
SofaMan -- Occasionally Battling Evil With His Mighty Powers Of Indolence.
Humans did not cause the Thylacines to become extinct. Certainly the destruction of Thylacines thought to be culling sheep herds was a pressure on their population, but the final blow was some kind of disease.
If it had definitely been humans that had wiped them out then I would be happier beleiving that there were specimens still at large.
Veltyen
And why should we recreate this tiger?
Could YOU tell a Tasmanian tiger from an Indian one?
Would it look really different for humans ?
No, this is just a waste of resources.
I might a perhaps a good cloning/gene manipulation test, but that's all.
Um. You do realise that the animal referred to as a "Tasmanian Tiger" is a striped carnivorous marsupial, like the numbat or Australian native cat? (which isn't a cat,but at least it is an Australian native).
It does have stripes at least.
Tragically it was wiped out more from ignorance and predjudice then for any real reason. There is no evidence that the Thylacine ever took any sheep. There are no reports of it attacking any humans either.
Could I tell a Tasmanian Tiger from an Asiatic one? From that statement it is obvious you have never, ever, ever seen a Thylacine.
Veltyen
was the extinction date.
Btw, I'm working on a bunch of related death/extinction dates, but not having a lot of luck finding sources, got ideas?
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
The Tasmanians not only hunted Tigers until their extinction. Before this they hunted people read on:
On May 7, 1876, Truganini, the last full-blood Black person in Tasmania, died at seventy-three years of age. Her mother had been stabbed to death by a European. Her sister was kidnapped by Europeans. Her intended husband was drowned by two Europeans in her presence, while his murderers raped her.
Read more here http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/tasmania.html
it succeeds, it will add a little bit extra to the practical knowledge of fiddlin' around with them thar gene thingees. so on one point it's a GOOD THING, on another it's a BAD THING.
And when we've got that done, settled, etc, any chance of cloning homo neanderthalensis back from extinction, or homo ergaster, or homo habilis, or paranthropus boisei, or whatever?
"I his bow, and spun and wove, likes you." Vere de Vere out of my mould's mouth dragged me of the voluntary apes.
It was called a tiger because it was a predator with stripes. Keep in mind that most settlers in Tasmania had never seen a real tiger, so all they had to go on were stories about beasts in Asia that were predators with stripes.
-AD
The Tasmanian Devil is one of the most effective natural garbage disposals on the face of the planet.
To quote from the above link:
With its powerful jaws and sharp sectorial teeth, it can consume every part of a dead kangaroo or sheep, including the skull.
Many people cite the lack of found dead Thylacine bodies (roadkill etc) as proof that they are not around any more. But when a carrion cleaner like the Devil is around, that makes that assumption a little presumptious. It can smell a lot better than we can see.
Not that this is proof that Thylacines are still around, but it is reason to question some "evidence" that they are not.
Reply from down under.
Nope, neither.
We have neither tigers nor wolfs but variations on the marsupial (kangaroo cousins). Tigers and wolves are of your western culture, the culture that showed up 111 years ago with firearms.
Australia is a very different reality than the western world. For a start, its people have been here, and maintained their oral tradition for 50,000 years. Take a walk-about on the Internet using google.com, and learn a bit. No wolves, no tigers, but a very sophisticated understanding of what genetic recreating of life is about. And, from what I have read of the comments on this subject, very few commentators on this site have a clue what's happening. Hint: what if the earth was a living organism and human beings were some of the brain cells? What if starting in August 1997, the earth began to wake up, and in the process began a wake-up call to its brain cells? What would wake-up calls look like, if this living organism used its own brain cells (human beings) to handle parts of the wake up call?
Stop reading, start listening. Everything you need to know is inside. All you have to do is to figure out how to connect head to heart.
Cheers mate.
Noel Coward (is 'anonymous' a distant cousin?)
November 26th, 2001 (Reuters) First Tasmanian Devil/Human Embryo Cloned
In response to Advanced Cell Technology's claims of cloning the first human embryo. A leading genetics research lab in Austrailia has cloned the first Tasmanian devil/human embryo to prove humans and tasmanian devils have compatible DNA.
On the issue of overlaping genetic impurities creating non viabile offspring.
<br>
I think Once we start seeing birth defects in the subject just use gene tharapy to correct the problem. We'll have an ofspring with DNA containing fewer impurities adding to the diversity of the gene pool.
Hasn't something similar been done with the Quagga?
I seem to recall that they were able to extract DNA from an improperly stuffed Quagga carcass. (The last one dying in a dutch zoo in 1833).
There is a selective breeding and research program currently underway http://www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2001/jun4.htm to breed them back into existance.