Slashdot Mirror
Modern Day Noah's Ark Dying
hype7 writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is running a story about the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development's Gene Bank, which appears to be running out of funding. It seems a terrible shame, because the Bank has managed to accumulate thousands of Australian and foreign endangered species; a kind of modern day Noah's Ark. At the moment it's in limbo, using funds diverted from other projects to keep it in ER, but the prospects aren't looking good."
Hey, Noah only had to house the animals for forty days and forty nights, right? That seems like a waaaay smaller budget than these guys!
Is this the work of sabotage by the Perl community for hiring away Damian? Damn you Perl Mongers! ;-)
Any thing involving genetics, and/or cloning is being shut down by the religouse right. (almost sounds like reich doesn't it?) I guess unless they try to resurect Jésus they'll never allow it.
I find it hard to believe that all the effort they have put in will go to waste. Anyone know if they have tried other countries? I didn't see anywhere in the article where they actually went for funding. Is there a clause or something that prevents them from going outside the country to get funding? If all else fails, maybe Crocodile Hunter Steve can give them some cash, you know the Australia Zoo has a bunch of money coming in from Croc Hunter.
Sent from your iPad.
they don't build them like they used to...
:)
[shakes head] Sounds like the government there really has it's priorities straight.
I mean, wouldn't even a tenth of the money spent on "protecting" the morality of the Australian websurfing public be better served by setting a good example and protecting the future of the planet?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Species rescue program faces extinction ... Professor Alan Trounson in the Gene Bank. Photo: Simon Schluter
... we always get a good hearing, but not the support financially."
"You can't create biodiversity. But it's something you can lose"
By Tom Noble
A program that saves the genetic material of threatened animal species faces a bleak future because of a lack of money.
The Gene Bank at the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development has material from thousands of animals in storage, mostly native species facing extinction.
But work on storing new specimens and developing cloning techniques that could mean the survival of some species has been slowed because of no direct funding and little interest from corporate or private sponsors.
"I think it does say a little about our priorities, which I think is sad," said Alan Trounson, IVF pioneer and deputy director of the research institute that is a world leader in IVF and stem cell work.
"I don't know how many boardrooms we've been in, how many people we've seen
A key project has been on the northern hairy-nosed wombat, which once roamed across large areas of Victoria, Queensland and NSW. It is now Australia's most endangered mammal with fewer than 100 remaining, confined to a small area of the Epping Forest National Park in central Queensland.
The wombat's only hope of survival may lie in a silver barrel at the Gene Bank, where cell lines from more than 40 of the wombats (grown from little bits of flesh when the animals were given ear-tags) sit cryogenically frozen, ready to be cloned when the technology becomes available.
Set up in 1996 with a Federal Government grant and corporate sponsorship, the Gene Bank - dubbed a Noah's Ark of endangered animals - began by storing sperm and eggs taken from endangered animals that had died, often in zoos. The advent of cloning meant any part of the animal would do, as long as cell lines could be grown.
The cells of thousands of animals - mostly natives, but other endangered species such as the African black rhino - from dozens of species are now stored.
A modest amount of money has allowed the Gene Bank to survive, diverted from other institute programs. "It's been put into neutral for the time being," said Professor Trounson.
Requests from NSW authorities to store native fish taken during a clean-out of rivers, as well as an oyster species threatened by pollution and disease, cannot be met.
The Gene Bank, the only one of its type in Australia, has lost its technician and the laboratories used for the program face being taken over by a well-funded program on cattle breeding.
"You can't create biodiversity. But it's something you can lose," says Professor Trounson. "Every animal we lose that doesn't have a common close relative is a big problem. It's something you can never get back."
Since European settlement, at least 19 animal, 20 bird and three amphibian species have become extinct in Australia. Hundreds of species are now regarded as threatened.
"The community don't seem to care really deeply about biodiversity because they are not facing it every day. But it's a big concern among naturalists, conservationists and scientists. There's a decimation of these species."
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
This is the kind of thing that would lead to great things, if people continued support for it.
Would anyone please post information, if they know, pertaining to how we can donate to this museum? I think that many of us would like it.
"The community don't seem to care really deeply about biodiversity because they are not facing it every day. But it's a big concern among naturalists, conservationists and scientists. There's a decimation of these species."
The above quote was from the actual article. Their community doesn't care, for whatever reasons. Maybe they don't understand, maybe they don't know, maybe they're just shallow. But I think some of us may care.
We can use our computer skills to volunteer for them, maybe. Save them some money on hiring a designer for their web presence, making their databases more efficient, etc. This is what we're here for. Show the world that "hackers" do more good than harm.
PayPal $$ if you sign up for free offers (eBay, cred cards, e
You don't have to go to Australia to find lack of funding endangering valuable genetic resources; The National Seed Storage Lab in Colorado is in exactly the same boat...er, ark. Read about their funding problems here. An excerpt:
What does this lack of funding mean? It results in another major problem for the banks:
germination backlog, currently of about 30,000 samples at the NSSL. Periodic germination tests
are important to assure the quality of the samples. Also, since seeds will not store indefinitely,
they must periodically be removed, grown out for new seed, and collected. Says Major
Goodman, a crop scientist at NC State who investigated the status of the samples, "Evaluation,
regeneration and utilization are essential parts of a functioning germplasm system. Yet the entire
emphasis...is based upon acquiring larger and larger numbers of samples to be stored in so-called
seed repositories..." A more accurate name, according to Goodman, is "seed morgues." The
samples that are most at risk are older or unusual varieties that are rarely requested, and
germination potential of these samples deteriorates. According to NSSL director Steve Eberhart,
who estimates that it would take 25 years to catch up with the backlog, "We normally test seeds
every ten years to make sure they'll still viable...we've had to eliminate our retesting in order to
process new materials. We don't know which material is deteriorating because we don't have the
staff to the do the germination." For example, there are 30,000 varieties of corn from Latin
America with four scientists assigned to grow and evaluate them. Each person can do 30 varieties
a year, totaling 120. At that rate, it would take 250 years to evaluate them all! Many of the corn
varieties will not survive to be regenerated.
it's getting closed not because of the lacking of money but because the director of the institute got caught importing "Grand Theft Auto 3" (original version) and making lil' some'ng some'ng on the side.
Or no doubt some biotech company might be willing to do so in return for rights to the contents and any future derivatives thereof...
Of course these sorts of prospects usually spur native donors and the project is thus "rescued" but it is sad that things come to such a crisis, particularly when the Australian fauna (and flora) are unique in the world.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
But, in the meantime, I look forward to higher quality McDonald's big macs!
Trapped in Time... Surrounded by Evil... Low on Gas.
With the possibilities opening up from the human genome and near sci-fi areas like stem cells and tissue regeneration its likely that as complete a catalogue and sample of the world's funa and flora will be collected for research as climate change and natural habitat destruction will allow and, really, if anythings missing we can just substitute frog DNA and raise it up.
BTW why does the post page have my submission date Sunday Feb. 3 7pm? Like I'll get an answer ha
heuristic algorithm seeks stochastic relationship
Although I'm in awe for projects of this kind of size and the fact that it's all for the sake of preserving stuff that needs preventing to get lost, I always shake my head a little when I see projects like this. There's so much stuff to collect and archive... it's like google trying to make a complete usenet archive. Cool, nice, usefull occasionally and for sure a nobel act, but in the end, you'll have to give up sometime. There's simply no way you can archive anything of a certain size.
Sometimes you just have to let things go.
It reminds me of a professor here who 'collected' the time of death of people. He tried to find correlation between birth date and date of death (for the freaks : there IS a correlation !) After a few years he had hundreds of thousands of data, but refused to stop collecting. It became collecting for the sake of the collections.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Seems to me the major expense in a program such as this is the long-term storage of the 'data' - and there doesn't look like there's an easy way over that obstacle.
I wonder, however, given the current thrust of the genome mapping projects around the globe if this issue can become irrelevant. With the ability to codify the genes in a species comes the ability to store the information in a much less expensive manner - and for much longer periods of time. Simply back it up to tape!
I know it's a fairly far off vision, but hey...
Culture is more than commerce
A program that saves the genetic material of threatened animal species faces a bleak future because of a lack of money.
What's the point in saving the actual genetic material? Storing the genetic code would make more sense, assuming that we can create the species from a given genetic code in the near future.
I Heart Sorting Networks
What is the point of saving a species in a test tube? The planet is only getting worse. if we cannot find a way to co-exist with nature NOW I doubt we ever will.
.. thats over 10 New York city blocks / second .. burned to the ground. We dump sewage, filth and pesticides into our fresh water .. nature is supposed to survive on this while we wont go near it without chlorinating it / filtering it.
... only a strong global commitment to changing our (evil) ways will make a difference ... and then a Modern Day Noah's Ark won't be necessary.
I read in todays paper that a forest area the size of Poland is lost each year
Storing genes in test tubes will not save Endangered Species
They were in the ark for over a year. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. The water still had to dry up after the rain stopped.
Keep in mind, the calendar in use at the time had 12 months of 30 days each. (There is some evidence that the earth's orbit has slowed down. Many ancient civilizations had a 360 day year.)
On the 17th day of the 2nd month, it started raining (Gen 7:11), it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Then:
"at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased. And in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. And the water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible." (Gen 8:3-5)
Then:
"in the first [month,] on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried up. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. Then God spoke to Noah, saying, "Go out of the ark..." (Gen 8:13-15)
Not that it would help "much", as I'm sure these guys need millions, but I'd gladly send them $50 or so. PayPal is simple and easy enough for most.
Throw in the Slashdot effect and we should be able to get them started with a few thousand. Then, just cross your fingers and hope for the snowball effect from a few other sites.
"Please hold off on the endangered species sig jokes," he added.
I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls
Is it the natural order of things for man to come along, industrialize, and cause extinction of thousands of species?
Is it the natural order of things for when man has technological enough assets to save genetic material to resurrect long gone species?
Or since it is mans fault for the extinction of a diverse number of animals is it our responsibility to have facilities such as this?
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
yea paypal or amazon.com
Sorry. That was supposed to be PayPal.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Wrong URL posted. Please moderate parent as overrated or offtopic.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
We just need to build a large fleet of spacecraft, and place all these seeds in orbit around Saturn....
www.eFax.com are spammers
"I was doing my taxes and accidently proved that god doesn't exist." -Homer Jay Simpson
Blind faith in a story only breeds war and ignorance when taken too far. Having something to believe in is all good and well, but don't push it upon others.
Why pick on politicians? In general, they are only doing what we want them to do. People want cheap steaks, cheap milk, and cheap leather. So the cattle farmers get the subsidies. We need to send everyone into the future to take a look at what those attitudes have done to mother earth.
In the case of the wombat, the two listed reasons for their decline are the introduction of grasses that have taken over the land that the wombats won't eat, and the introduction of cattle competing for the grasses the wombats do eat. Add to that the decline in habitat due to the spread of civilization, the introduction of feral cats, rabbits, and other non-indigineous creatures, predatory dingos who have been pushed out of their native hunting grounds, pesticides, acid rain, Microsoft (ok, don't know what MS has to do with it but I'm sure they're involved!), and well we've screwed up a lot. There's no easy fix.
But you know what? Send everyone 50 years into the future, and what do we have? 49 years before we really need to look for a solution- call me a pessimist if you'd like...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Or was that just a reference to a mythical story?
It strikes me that if the Noah's Ark story is true then what goes with it is true as well... or do we believe some of the story and not the parts we don't wanna believe?
I hope they gain funding from somewhere, it's a cool project. Even if we couldn't save certain species now, in the future no doubt we'll be able to regain some of the lost. It'd be nice to populate remote islands with lab-grown dinosaurs... or new planets with lab-grown dogs/owls/leopards.
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
Figure out which two species are the least likely to go extinct, put one of each in a cage, and see which one lives. Murdoch will broadcast the results on Fox as "When Endangered Species Attack."
As unfortunate a statement as it may be about today's society, I believe that one the chief hindrances in this extremely worthy cause finding adequate funding is its poor public image.
Take for example the WWF (World Wildlife Fund). With their people-friendly, Panda Logo, they manage to secure millions of dollars of funding on an annual basis. Thanks in no small part to having this cute & cuddly, little monster as their mascot, the organization has been able to save numerous lesser-known and less adorable species from total extinction.
Alternatively, the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development's Gene Bank, lists the far less lovable Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat as a "key project"...
Should the fact that the northern hairy-nosed wombat does not closely resemble the fury little teddy bears we all grew up loving make it any less worthwhile in saving - of course not. Does it make it a more difficult sell to the public and subsequently corporations when attempting to secure research funding - what do you think...
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. -- Benjamin Franklin
And Santa Claus delivers presents to all the boys and girls all over the world in a single day. Don't you just love fantasy? Remember, take the Bible with a grain of salt. The stories are by no means factual by any stretch of the imagination. The people that try to pass them off as fact are just downright gullible. If you take them and realize they're metaphors for moral living the Bible will be a much more valuable tool. Otherwise it has no more value than a children's book about a wonderful boy wizard named Harry.
They can store it all at my house. ;)
I think I have extra room in the basement I can spare if they need it.
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
Are you calling me a liar?
There is a natural reason that species die off. Whether it's weakness, climate change, etc: it's only natural that things evolve and species no longer exist. It is, however, not natural to play God and maintain or revive a dying species.
best,
dig
Has anyone ever stopped to consider whether a dying species is dying for a reason? That reason being their inability to adapt to their environmental changes?
This is the cold hand of evolution, showing no favorites, holding no hands of the children.
What makes them think that a species they save now (cryogenically or not), would be able to survive in a climate N years from now, possibly one that is much more hostile?
Oh, so they want us to save these creatures so we can do what with them then? Release them into futuristic zoos, for the public to peruse en masse?
This is not a viable solution.
With such an analogy to the Catholic religion, they might want to contact Noah's sole sponsor, or its local branch: The Vatican.
I DO NOT mean to be disrespectful in any way, but I'm pretty sure they still are the wealthiest entity on the Planet, right?
And preserving such richess can only be viewed as a valuable cause.
Just thought I'd mention it.
Cheers.
The San Diego zoo has dna from over 4000 species
on ice.
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/cres/frozen.html
I've got DNA from only 4 species in my freezer:
Chicken
Cow
Salmon
Pig
He is the one with the money right? Or tell Ellison that William is going to fund them, then he'll get son envious he'll fund them for twice the period and say it was the most secure funding there ever was...
The premise is totally stupid anyway. You would need to have several dozen dna samples from several different lines of the same species in order to recreate them. Heard of something called in-breeding? If you only took one or two samples of the same species, and tried to re-breed them, within a few generations, there would be so much genetic problems, you should just kill them anyway to get them out of their misery. Don't even bother.
Well, if the research is in danger, perhaps we could just take the DNA from all of the scientists involved and store them in some sort of bank. Then when society comes to its senses we could clone them and start the project over.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Just get Bill Gates to bail them out.
---They were in the ark for over a year. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. The water still had to dry up after the rain stopped.---
I love how someone can say something entirely screwy, and then try to reason from it, and scold others for not reasoning properly. Tell me, where was your good sense about what "had to" happen to all the water when it was back in the sentence before, imagining 40 days/nights worth of rain suddenly flooding the entire world? Where did all the water come from? If the answer is "god made it," then suddenly there's no reason to bother reasoning about what anything "had to" do anymore.
Or is this one of those bits of knowledge handed out in those little paper tracts I toss away?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Ever heard of the "Canopy Theory?" Search google for it. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. (Heck, my post was a semi-serious response to a certainly non-serious post.) I like reading about differing views. There's always some interesting stuff in it. Maybe even a tidbit of truth. (I first heard about the Canopy Theory in a book lent to me by a Young Earther concerned about my Old Earthness.)
For those of you who might be interested, there is now a scientific hypothesis for the origins of the Great Flood story. Go to your favorite book selling site, and search for Noah's Flood. The author of the book are Ryan and Pitman. Or you can read this little blurb.
Bob Ballard recently conducted an underwater survey to try to find evidence that would support the hypothesis of Ryan and Pitman. There is a National Geographic video/special about this work.
BTW, the flood is hypothesized to be the flooding of the Black Sea over seven thousands years ago.
The Canopy Theory is one of the best examples of how "scientific" creationism is intellectually bankrupt. It sounds wonderful until you actually spend five brain cells thinking about it. (Note: fast order of magnitude calcs follow.)
Assume we have enough water in the atmosphere in the form of vapor to cover the earth 30k feet deep. All that water weighs exactly what it weighs in liquid form and thus presses down with that same force: IOW, the Earth would have had an atmospheric pressure equal to about that of a deep sea trench. Given that humans have major problems dealing with more than a few atmospheres when scuba diving, not likely. (Oh, that's right. God took care of that.)
How can we see under all that water, or plants photosynthesize? The ocean is pitch black from 300 or so meters down in even the clearest water. (God again)
Next, work out how fast the water actually fell. 10k meters/40 days*24hours = 10.4 *meters* per hour. No chance of breathing under that kind of deluge. (God fixed it, check)
How about the kinetic energy of that water? (Again, real fast calc-I may be off by an order of magnitude or more. Feel free to check.) You have 10 km worth of water falling at least 10km. PE converted to KE: PE is mgh: g = 10 m/s^2, h = 10km, mass = 4/3*pi*(r2^3-r1^3) *h2o density, where r2 = r1+10km, r1= earth radius of 6378140m. Mass is roughly 5e18 tons = 5e21 kg, PE = mgh = 5e26 joules. A big H-bomb puts out 1e17, so this an energy output roughly the equal of 5e9 H-bombs exploding. Where did all that energy go- oh yeah, God fixed it.
Where is the water today? Oh, that's right, God miracled it away.
There's no science here at all, just a pathetic rationalization of a biblical story. Even one "God fixed it" takes it out of science altogether.
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
> There's no science here at all, just a pathetic rationalization of a biblical story. Even one "God fixed it" takes it out of science altogether.
While I agree with your factual statements which disprove the canopy theory, you seem to make one assumption which is simply false. You assume that the canopy theory is an attempt to rationalize a biblical story. The canopy theory was first proposed in 1874 by Isaac Vail, who was an evolutionist. Sure, creationists have tried to use this theory to support their arguement, but they used a theory originally proposed by the "other" camp. Science continually changes and disproves itself. (Quantum Physics, anyone?) Theories are just theories. We could get a whole lot more science done if we could get over our religious preconceptions (I'm talking about _both_ sides here) and simply look at facts. Humans just don't seem to work that way, though. And, NO, I don't buy all the "God Fixed It"s. If it's true, it can be proven scientifically.
You havent even read the article you wally!
They said "genetic material from 40 differenct lines of wombat".
How can you even expect to get a fair hearing if you cant get your fact right.
I mean, it's the longest lasting permanant deepfreeze that comes to my mind.
There are solid rock mountains there that could have caves dug in them and biomass placed there for some future time when more compassionate humanlike people live on earth.
I don't know about you but I don't know if I'd want to live in a world without animals and plants and nature.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
The way I reason it, is, if it can be proved scientifically, then there's no reason to have God. The point of there being a god (not just a Christian God) is to help people explain things that just don't have an obvious rationale behind it. If somebody were able to scientifically explain the Great Flood, I don't think that would convince either you or anybody else of a reality of a Greater Being.
It's like any of the other miracles presented in the Bible. They're called "miracles" because they're unexplainable by scientific means. I don't think your issue (I don't mean this in a negative way) is believing in whether there is a god, but believing whether miracles can really happen. Only if you believe in miracles can you start accepting that some other being is at work.
<tim><
http://secure.metro.net.au/monashiv/donate.htm
That's the link to donate. Remember folks, that's in Australian dollars - roughly 2 AUD:1 USD
-- james
you know like they do at the zoo with adopt a monkey. :)
I have no idea what it would cost but getting a certificate to say you sponsered [*INSERT FAV ANIMAL HERE*] would be cooool.
Of course the penguins would be the first to go
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
---You assume that the canopy theory is an attempt to rationalize a biblical story. The canopy theory was first proposed in 1874 by Isaac Vail---
But it WAS an attempt to rationalize the Biblical story! Explicitly! The man published phamphets about such things as Eve, the flaming sword, and other such things. He was interested not only in the Bible, however, but rather more broadly on finding scientific truth in myths from many traditions that supported the Biblical account. The fact that he was or was not a proponent of a then largely circumstantial and still nacesnt evolutionary theory is entirely beside the point: all that matters is that his theories, even under the best conditions, would put the temperature of the earth at a nice, comfortable 220 F
You talk about the value of science being it considers and refutes ideas. Well good: it refuted this one long long ago. You might have mentioned that when you first posted about it. Even most creationists don't hold with it any longer, because it doesn't stand up to either science or even most litteralist Biblical interpretations. The problem with this, endemic to creationism in general, is that even when something like this is roundly disproved, or even when most _creationists_ declare it verboten, at least in public, it STILL gets recycled again and again as a something "you should check out" because it proports to support the biblical account: even sometimes by the very same creationists who had publically said that it was crap. But for some reason, even universally agreed upon bad ideas are somehow okay to use, as long as they attack evolution and support creation accounts. As Paul said and Martin Luther concurred: (and I paraphrase) "hey, if I tell lies to sell the faith, what's the big deal as long as the faith is sold?"
Man is causing extinctions at a thousand times faster than species could evolve naturally to cope with us.
Yea, just think, without the wombats we would have never had that wombat chant by Kevin Costner in the movie 3000 miles to graceland. What a loss that woulda been so we should save the wombat, yea thats the ticket.
excuse me, how much does it cost to just keep these gene samples in a refridgerator?
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
I normally read at +2 so didn't see the original of this, but you might also tell him/her that those ancient civilizations also inserted intercalary days at various times to keep their calendars synchronized with the seasons (except the Egyptians, who didn't seem to care that the seasons marched through their calendar).
--The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese
actually if you want to get technical, it wasn't all rain. Read Genesis 7:1. It refers to underground water.
>The canopy theory was first proposed in 1874 by Isaac Vail, who was an evolutionist.
/. Interesting little tidbits that generally have nothing to do with the topic
now this is why I read
Hey! They might even patent those genes and live from royalties. At least that's where the world seems to be going anyway: Noah's Ark, Inc. ! :-)
--Manuel
"I hate quotations, tell me what you think"