Cenozoic Park: Cloning the Tasmanian Tiger

Mirk writes "The Australian Museum reports a breakthrough in their plans to clone the Tasmanian Tiger. The ``tiger'', actually a carnivorous marsupial, became extinct in 1936, when the last known specimen died in captivity. Er, did I say ``extinct''? Now it looks like what everyone thought was an extinction may be ``a 70-year hiccup'', to quote the press release. The museum's Evolutionary Biology Unit have successfully replicated individual Tasmanian Tiger genes using a process known as PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction)."

Comments

Apologies to Blake.

[ktakki]

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the test tubes of the night,
What immortal laborat'ry
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Sorry.

k.

Couple More Species

[4of12]

I'd sure like it if a couple of species would return to existence that were obliterated earlier.

Two examples from the last several hundred years include the great auk and the passenger pigeon.

Two examples of species that humankind hunted to extinction (since they were such wonderful food sources) include the woolly mammoth and the giant sloth.

I recall an historical account of the last great auk being killed so that it could be stuffed and placed in the British museum. The collectors also took pains to destroy the last eggs in the nest at the same time. Gives you some idea of how much our views of what is fitting and proper for us to do in the world can change over a few hundred years.

Now that there are so many of us humans in a finite sized world, and our technological means of changing the world are more influential, it behoves us to give more and more thought to the consequences of our actions.

It's really only our capability for reasoning and thought that gives us a chance of beating the other animals for long term survival of our species.