Slashdot Mirror
"Lazarus Project" Clones Extinct Frog
cylonlover writes "Australian scientists have successfully revived and reactivated the genome of an extinct frog. The 'Lazarus Project' team implanted cell nuclei from tissues collected in the 1970s and kept in a conventional deep freezer for 40 years into donor eggs from a distantly-related frog. Some of the eggs spontaneously began to divide and grow to early embryo stage with tests confirming the dividing cells contained genetic material from the extinct frog. The extinct frog in question is the Rheobatrachus silus, one of only two species of gastric-brooding frogs, or Platypus frogs, native to Queensland, Australia. Both species became extinct in the mid-1980s and were unique amongst frog species for the way in which they incubated their offspring."
This is the thing I still don't get about cloning extinct species. The mitochondria are also part of the organism, but they don't seem seem to ever get taken into account when there is talk of cloning. If you take the mitochondria from one species and the nuclear DNA from another species, what do you get? You could easily argue that you get a sort of hybrid species, which is not quite the same as either parent species.
As with jaguars, this will be considered one of the worst DNA bottlenecks of all time depending, of course, on how many specimens he kept and how many can become viable. If only the one then they'll all be clones even if they start breeding on their own. just think, we may produce thousands of these in a controlled environment only to have them wiped out completely when they run into a bacteria, virus or fungus to which they have no resistance but some other variant member of the species might. it would kill them all and we'd have to start from scratch. Such will be the case with the Tasmanian tiger as well, a wonderful achievement at bringing back an extinct species and with all the fragility of fine porcelain to be kept safe, admired and protected from any outside danger.
Yes, I know there are spontaneous mutations but they take time and these specimens likely won't have that time.
No. I kept telling them they were missing a golden opportunity to revive the JP franchise, but they were all like "Security! Get this man out of here!"
You're not offended at roman mythological names for the planets, are you? Science isn't endorsing or promoting these religions, they're merely referencing them. "Project to bring a frog back from extinction" or "Jurribbit park" aren't as memorable. At least, not in a good way.
Hey, I'm still protesting the names of the week - I mean, Tyr, Odin, Thor, Frida - stop forcing your Paganism on me - every. single. week.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)