Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Extinct Pyrenean Ibex Cloned

Posted by Soulskill on from the intrepid-endeavor dept.

jamie points out a story in the Telegraph about a project to clone the Pyrenean Ibex (known also as bucardo), a species that went extinct in 2000. Before the last known member of the species died, scientists took tissue samples to begin a project to clone the animal. "Using techniques similar to those used to clone Dolly the sheep, known as nuclear transfer, the researchers were able to transplant DNA from the tissue into eggs taken from domestic goats to create 439 embryos, of which 57 were implanted into surrogate females. " Now, for the first time, one of them has survived the gestation period, living for seven minutes after birth. One of the researchers said, "The delivered kid was genetically identical to the bucardo. In species such as bucardo, cloning is the only possibility to avoid its complete disappearance."

9 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. HUMANS: - by Bananatree3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The only species with the idiocy and shortsightedness to make a species go extinct, and the only species with the passionate pursuit knowledge to bring them back.

    1. Re:HUMANS: - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The only species with the idiocy and shortsightedness to make a species go extinct

      Ridiculous. Humans may be better at causing extinctions than other species but that isn't because other species are reluctant to do it, or consider the implications at all.

    2. Re:HUMANS: - by alx5000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, and since we have the ability to both consider the implications of and avoid the extinction of other species, we should at least try to be a little worse at it...

      --
      My 0.02 cents
    3. Re:HUMANS: - by Jack9 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "destabilize" is pejorative without qualification. "change" or "influence" is accurate. Perhaps that was not the point you were trying to make. Causing and preventing extinctions are inevitable, amoral events (we damn near exterminate diseases, both animal and human, without much complaint). It's interesting to see how many tree-huggers are on /. Implying that the genetic code of certain fluffy/swimmy organisms, by extension their species, are sancrosanct is disturbingly ignorant. Your Morals May Vary.

      --

      Often wrong but never in doubt.
      I am Jack9.
      Everyone knows me.
  2. How fast are they? by damburger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    -We clocked the Pyrenean Ibex at 30mph

    -(looking horrified)You cloned a Pyrenean Ibex!?

    Somehow, I don't think the Jurassic Park tag is completely accurate...

    --
    If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
  3. Nature, red in tooth and claw. by Colin+Smith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The only species with the idiocy and shortsightedness to make a species go extinct,

    Completely utterly wrong.

    All species end up extinct. They are replaced by others which are more fit for the environment.
     

    --
    Deleted
    1. Re:Nature, red in tooth and claw. by 10Neon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Some of them are quite good at it. Raccoons, pigeons, rats, cockroaches, to name a few. Sure, they're not species we particularly like but it is certainly not the case that an urbanized environment is a human-only zone.

      --
      The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
    2. Re:Nature, red in tooth and claw. by mrsquid0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >Wrong. Evolution is false.

      Evolution is a mathematical concept that can be applied to physical and biological (and other) systems. Saying that evolution is false is a lot like saying that optimization is false, or that group theory is false.

      --
      Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
  4. What's the point? by macraig · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's the point of reviving this species of Ibex, unless we also remove the conditions that caused it to go extinct in the first place? I'm guessing that condition is known by the name Homo sapiens?

    It's guilt and sentimentalism driving this behavior, not pragmatism. Does anyone recall the movie "Silent Running"? We're continuing to motor headlong toward that consequence and not making the pragmatic changes necessary to avert it.

    To hell with fighting global warming or terrorism: we need to be reversing human overpopulation, NOW, before Mother Nature finally finds a way to do it for us. Cloning a few members of this Ibex species is a waste of effort when the PROBLEM still exists and is GROWING. Are we going to put these Ibex in a space ark and fly them out to Jupiter?