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Scientists To Breed the Auroch From Extinction
ImNotARealPerson writes "Scientists in Italy are hoping to breed back from extinction the mighty auroch, a bovine species which has been extinct since 1627. The auroch weighed 2,200 pounds (1000kg) and its shoulders stood at 6'6". The beasts once roamed most of Asia and northern Africa. The animal was depicted in cave paintings and Julius Caesar described it as being a little less in size than an elephant. A member of the Consortium for Experimental Biotechnology suggests that 99% of the auroch's DNA can be recreated from genetic material found in surviving bone material. Wikipedia mentions that researchers in Poland are working on the same problem."
It sounds delicious.
The main difference, I think -- besides the fact that the Nazis were motivated by loony ideology and the modern researchers, presumably, are motivated by scientific curiosity -- is that the Hecks could only breed for phenotype, while the groups currently working on the problem are breeding for genotype. A project like this is really impossible without modern DNA sequencing technology.
That being said, it would be interesting to know how close the Hecks got. The Wiki article doesn't mention if there's been any comparison of the Heck genome to the reconstructed aurochs genome; I'd like to know the results of such a study.
It's also amusing to speculate what would have happened if sequencing had been available back then. Der Fuehrer's apoplexy upon learning that an awful lot of the Jews and Slavs he was bent on exterminating were genetically indistinguishable from the general German population would have been a site to behold.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
What, could it have been that Creationists were going to breed the auroch from extinction?
Well, no, Creationists pray for it, and get one delivered to them from heavens right there and then.
In any case, I think that "scientists do $something_awesome" is a traditional, respected, and still wonderful meme of its own. It reinforces the notion that so many cool things that we have, we owe to science; which just happens to be something well worthy reminding about these days.
Are you saying that anyone who does experimentation with DNA is thereby a scientist?
I thought the common term for those people was "parents". And apparently it doesn't seem to require a degree (although from what I see around me, maybe it should).
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
I'm amazed that nobody has commented that one of the beasties is (or was) an AUROCHS, not an "auroch". Two of 'em would be auroches or aurochsen. Talking about an "auroch" is like talking about a Chinee or Portugee. More to the point, it would be like talking about "ock" as the singular of oxen, since "ox" is the second syllable of aurochs.
-- John Dierdorf, Austin TX
Exactly. The person and his claims should be evaluated independently. You shouldn't disbelieve everything an astrologer says just because he's an astrologer, nor should you believe everything that a whale biologist says just because he's a whale biologist.