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Bits of Tassie Tiger Brought Back from Extinction

Posted by timothy on from the not-much-to-look-at-yet dept.

zerobeat writes "Scientists from Melbourne, Australia have managed to resurrect the gene responsible for the development of cartilage and bone from the now extinct Tasmanian Tiger. The gene was expressed in a mouse embryo so the full reincarnation of a full Tassie Tiger is a long way off. You can listen to an MP3 of ABC Australia's Robyn Williams discussing the results with the lead scientists. This is the first time DNA from an extinct species has been made to live again in a live animal."

4 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A unix system! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I know this!
    Shut up. Just, shut up. Interestingly enough, the system shown was a Macintosh (pre-OS X, however). /me starts wondering about connections between Stephen Spielberg and Steve Jobs. *dons tinfoil hat*

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  2. Why? by mapkinase · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    "So the full reincarnation of a full Tassie Tiger is a long way off."

    Why? Species are extinct for a reason - they did not survive. I never understood an ecological reason for preservation of a particular species with organism count in 100s (like pandas, for example). Just think what would be ecological impact of disappearance of 100 pandas...

    There might be other commercial reasons to preserve certain species (tourism, political, etc.), but if you think only ecology, then there is no need to resurrect species that are extinct or preserve species that are on the verge of extinction.

    IMHO, the ecological efforts are too concentrated on preservation of individual species instead of preservation of ecological communities as a whole.

    And if those ecological communities are so tender, why bother? Let it go. We can survive in concrete underground or some other kind of apocalyptic econightmare anti-utopia...

    If the wild life cannot stand humans, let it go. Evolve or smth, get some oil-eating teeth, develop some plastic resistance.

    "Nature" is overrated.

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    1. Re:Why? by mapkinase · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Why don't you go somewhere else from /.?

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      I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
  3. Re:Brings to mind Jurassic Park by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Someone mod this guy down for ruining our fun and imaginations!