Oldest-Ever Proteins Extracted From 3.8-Million-Year-Old Ostrich Shells (sciencemag.org)

Slashdot reader sciencehabit writes: Scientists have smashed through another time barrier in their search for ancient proteins from fossilized teeth and bones, adding to growing excitement about the promise of using proteins to study extinct animals and humans that lived more than 1 million years ago. Until now, the oldest sequenced proteins are largely acknowledged to come from a 700,000-year-old horse in Canada's Yukon territory, despite claims of extraction from much older dinosaurs. Now geneticists report that they have extracted proteins from 3.8-million-year-old ostrich egg shells in Laetoli, Tanzania, and from the 1.7-million-year-old tooth enamel of several extinct animals in Dmanisi, Georgia...extinct horses, rhinos, and deer,
This raises the inevitable question. If we ever could clone a prehistoric species...should we?

Comments

Of course we should clone them!

[Black Parrot]

We'll need dinosaurs to help us fight our robots when they decide to subjugate us.

p.s. - I got dibs on the movie rights.

Re:What we should really do.

[ColdWetDog]

Hell, if elephant ivory is good for an aphrodisiac, the MAMMOTH ivory should give you an even bigger erection. A mammoth one even.