Extinct Pyrenean Ibex Cloned

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."

Comments

Cloning one individual won't save the species

[MartinSchou]

Seriously.

They have one individual. Even if they made a thousand clones of that individual, you still wouldn't save the species. Even if you were able to manipulate the embryos into male and females, you're still stuck with absolutely no genetic diversty.

Nice try, but start by cloning a healthy population first.

Re:Cloning one individual won't save the species

[MartinSchou]

Well, there seems to be two things to gain from this:

1) How to get a healthy clone out of the experiment.
This seems to have already been done with Dolly, but aparently the knowledge doesn't translate easily from species to species.

2) Restoring an extinct species
They didn't take DNA from enough individuals to avoid inbreeding even if they manage to perfect cloning that species.

While "because you can" is a rather popular reason around here, it just seems like a waste to me. "To save the species" is not even possible with what they've done. It's like declaring Windows to be the best POSIX compliant OS around.

Re:Nature, red in tooth and claw.

[lordSaurontheGreat]

Sufficient intermediary fossil samples to demonstrate in a clear and unequivocal manner that evolution is real and has taken place has not yet been found.

Which is why evolution is still just a theory.

I'm not saying it's false, but I will say that it certainly could be full of just as much hot air as you all like to think creationism is.

It's not over until the fat scientists sing... or something like that.

Re:Nature, red in tooth and claw.

[lordSaurontheGreat]

It they indeed exist, then you would actually link to them.

Seeing as how you have not linked, you are wrong.

How can you honestly support a scientific theory if you're not willing to use the scientific method? I'm perfectly willing to accept evolution - when it's been fucking proven like every other scientific law out there.

I will not give evolution a free pass from theory to law just because some fucking Anti-Christ-Liberals-Union asshole says "THIS IS POLITICALLY CORRECT!!!"