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Cloning Endangered Species

Posted by michael on from the just-add-water dept.

JackMonkey writes "As SFGate.com reports, scientists have successfully cloned an endangered species. "The clone -- a cattlelike creature known as a Javan banteng, native to Asian jungles -- was grown from a single skin cell taken from a captive banteng before it died in 1980." Maybe Jurassic Park isn't too far away after all." See our previous cloning story also.

5 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. Speaking of Jurassic Park by nocomment · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
    - Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

    We are witnessing the end of the scietific era. Science, like other outmoded systems, is destroying itself. As it gains power, it proves itself incapable of handling that power. Because things are going very fast now. Fifty years ago, everyone was gaga over the atomic bomb. That was power. No one could imagine anything more. Yet, a bare decade after the bomb, we began to have genetic power. And genetic power is far more potent than atomic power. And it ... will force everyone to ask the same question - what should I do with my power? - which is the very question science says it cannot answer.
    - Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

    --
    /* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
    /* http://allyourbasearebelongto.us */
    1. Re:Speaking of Jurassic Park by barakn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      #1, it's Crichton. #2, I read Jurassic Park long before it became a movie. I thought the science in it was extremely weak. In fact Jurassic Park convinced me that Crichton had stopped writing novels and was now selling screen plays masquerading as books. The "science" in Jurassic Park was merely a plot device to allow dinosaurs to run around chomping people: great Hollywood fodder.

      --
      "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
  2. Imagine the possibilities... by infernalC · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now that we have the ability to clone animals who are endangered whilst destroyoing the habitat they live in, we can let our consciences be at ease, because even though they have no place left to live, they exist.

    Next month's manager special: the McBateng (with special sauce, of course).

  3. Repopulating Extinct Species ... NOT by mattsucks · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Several friends have picked up on this story and are all excited that now we can bring back extinct species. The dodo, ivory-billed woodpecker, etc etc and so on. I had to explain to them that for any species to survive, IN THE WILD, there must be a population of sufficient size and more importantly sufficient genetic diversity. We can clone 1000 dodo's (insert politician joke here) but it will still only be ONE dodo. Not to mention that pretty much all the dodo's natural habitat is gone gone gone .. where will they live? The suburbs?

    If all we want is to have a couple of living specimens around to look at, cloning will be fine. Anyone expecting to use cloning to re-introduce extinct species to the wild is fooling themselves.

  4. In addition.... by spotted_dolphin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1000 dodos of the same sex isn't going to do a lot for the population in the long run. Even dozens of each sex will cause problems; purebred dogs usually have some sort of genetic disorder because not enough genetic variation in the gene pool has led to bad genes being paired together.