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Cloning of extinct Huia bird approved
kade writes to us with the news that New Zealand scientists and ethicists have decided that attempts to clone the extinct Huia bird should begin immediatly. The birds were declared extinct in the 1920s, their fault being they had white tipped black feathers that were "used" in a European fashion craze in the 1920s. IMHO, more stuff like this should happen-and for the organisms in danger of extinction, we should procure cell samples in hope of cloning later. Of course, first priority should be saving them then, but what do you all think?
Regarding Dolly:
Researchers have shown that while Dolly is aging at an accelrated rate due to the use of older donor material, the natural born offspring of Dolly do not experience this problem. Cloning may make it "easy" to start a species, but as some have pointed out, diversification is a real issue. The lack of a diverse gene pool can cause severe genetic defect amplification. This happens in all species of animals. It shows up most effectively in dogs when a particular breed becomes popular a puppy mills are established to meet the demand. The result is poor vision, bad hips, poor immune systems, bad hearing, and even bad temperments.
While some defects can be beneficial to the regions, as has happened in humans based in disparate regions of the world, most are harmful to the species as a whole. If there is a significant portion of genetic material available to create a diverse gene pool for an extinct, near-extinct, or endangered species, then cloning should be considered. Otherwise, an inferior version of the species could be the result and as such could possibly become re-extinct easily as a result of genetic maladies.
I'll never be as good as I want to be. I can only be as good as I am.
It is not a choice we can make. We are now the parents of the planet which reared us. To look at in any other way is wishful thinking, and nostalgia.
We should be careful. We should think more often than we act, but we should not hope that "God" knows what to do, and its not out place to mess-a-bout.
With regards to playing God, merely changing the face of the earth is not playing God. It is terraforming, and I admit that we humans have a lot to learn about it. We're decent terraformers, but not very good ones yet. But that isn't playing God.
In fact, per the Judeo-Christian mythos, this is exactly what we are supposed to be doing. The first commandment God ever gave a person in the book of Genesis is (paraphrasing here) to go forth and multiply, to fill the earth and to subdue it.
I don't expect everyone to agree with this perspective; there are a number of religions among the Slashdotters. However, not all of them think that we are playing God with the earth. IMHO, we are not "raping the planet". We are doing our job, but stumbling a lot when we are doing it.
--The basis of all love is respect
Doen't seem quite apposite any more.
...and that is the rejects. As with any "artifical" process you will have defects along the way. Heck, even nature isn't pefect, but it's pretty close when it comes to reproduction. As of now, the success rate for cloning is very small, so you end up with all these geneticly fuct animals. Now, it's nice we have the chance to reverse a stupid mistake of ours, but what do we do when New Zealand Huia bird population is 80% retarded?
hrm...looks like we are getting closer to making jurassic park a reality. yikes!
> If we start cloning things now, birds, sheep,
> etc. even to fix a mistake on our part, whats
> to prevent us from having made to order humans
> in the future?
If we *don't* start cloning things now, what's to prevent us from having made to order humans in the future?
In any case, we can't *start* cloning humans and animals now, as we have been doing it for many years already. The big discussion you probably remember from some time ago was about cloning *adults*, not cloning in general.
Cloning is a well established technique, in particular for plants.
Mosquitoes are a vitally important part of many food chains. Ask anyone (who knows a tiny bit about what he is talking about) in Southwest Florida.
Massive spraying for mosquitoes kills the larvae which live on the surface of the water among mangrove roots. Many fish feed on these larvae as one of their primary food sources. The massive killing of the larvae caused a precipitous drop in the numbers of these fish. Those drops were blamed on commercial fishermen, and netfishing was banned. Lots of hard-working Floridians were suddenly left without livlihoods.
Worse (in the minds of some) sportfishing declined somewhat as the number of snook and other popular quarries declined. Now, to eat snook commercially, one has to import it from Lake Victoria in Africa.
All because mosquitoes are annoying.
Of course, I'm not complaining too much. They are nasty vectors of disease (I got malaria in Africa from one of the buggers), but is is incredibly arrogant of humans to feel that they can meddle with links of systems that have been in existance for millions of years without causing profound imbalances in those systems.
My two bits.
-awc
Humans are part of nature and can facilitate natural evolution (whether or not nature is a good thing is another topic). Part of this birds or any animal's genetic domanance that will allow it to survive/resurface may very well be that it tastes good to us (or was cute in this case). Besides, how are we to know till we try? If we think better of what we did we can always dine on them back in to extinction. =)
In the words of the great thinker Homer (Simpson). "We don't need a thinker, we need a do-er! Someone who is willing to take action without considering the consequences!"
--Help me hack root on 127.0.0.1
--panZ
--Let's hack root on 127.0.0.1 --panZ
It's also been suggested that parts could be
grown on their own in cultures
Or that they can be grown inside the body of the person who needs the spare.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
There are other easier ways of dying. There's more purpose in making things that will help people out. There's no shortage of toxins or other potential problems humans would have.
Michael Chricton wrote the book. I think I spelled the name somewhat wrong, sorry.
That life mirrors science fiction (or art in general) is only true to a limited extent. The less understood the science in question the less accurate the statement is. Jurassic Park only made use of dribblings of science fact mixed in with a lot more fiction to propel the story along. That's ok, its fiction, it isn't an essay.
Suppose tomorrow we find out somebody has reproduced dinosaurs on an isolated island in the south pacific. Also suppose that these people abandon it for whatever reason. If certain predators such as the velociraptor were as efficient as portrayed in the movie the population would quickly die out. The birth rate of what the velociraptor consider foods just wouldn't be fast enough to maintain its food supply. The large herbivores would defoliate the island quicker than new foilage could grow.
The point is that the book was written with a goal in mind: Dinosaurs run amock due to the capricious actions of scientific man. A certain amount of science fact to make the recreation of dinosaurs plausible was added. A whole lot of abuse of science went on to not only let the island run away but generate a sequel (or is it at 2 sequels now?)
These extinct birds are a lot more understood than dinosaurs as well. Details such as its diet, flight range, mating habits and any special dietary staples may well be known. So for instance if it prefers to dine on an insect which is also preferred to be dined on by a 'modern' avian then it can be taken into consideration. Hopefully this is being done otherwise these people aren't scientists.
OK, folks, this sounds all nice and noble, but it is a damn bad idea. Some of these points have already been made; others have not. But here goes:
1. If the attitude becomes "don't worry, we can always clone 'em later," we'll have no reason to protect endangered species anymore. This is bad, because
2. At the present time, cloning is not sufficiently advanced to be a truly viable replacement for reproduction. And seeing as how there's only that one cloned sheep running around, has anyone checked to see whether or not Dolly is capable of reproduction? We could be pseudo-breeding a bunch of sterile animals, and have to keep cloning them, in which case the quality of the genetic "copies" will degrade in much the way that a copy of a copy of a copy etc. of an audio tape does.
3. Introducing a species into an ecosystem, without full knowledge of how it interacts with the stuff that's already there, is a BAD IDEA . Cases in point: the Australian feral cat problem, chestnut blight, and even some attempts to reintroduce captivity-bred endangered species into the wild.
4. That reminds me, do cloned animals have the same "survival instincts" that their normally-bred counterparts do? The whole thing could become a big old exercise in futility if not.
I understand the nobility of the instinct. But you know what is paved with good intentions
"The bats are doing just fine. There are hundreds of them. I have a terrible feeling we're in trouble." -Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
some people are going to say thus and reason that this is why they should not be brought back to life. But with that reasoning then I tend to say hey then there must be a reason we have the ability to bring them back...
I'm waiting for a saber tooth tiger to gaurd my lawn
-eric
It really isn't practical to save them all. There are so many species in danger of extinction that it would be impossible. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try, but rather that we should start with the ones that taste best.
One large problem they'll face is trying to clone enough of the different subspecies of the bird in order for the species to be genetically viable. This may be jumping the gun a bit (if they clone one, I'm sure everyone will be excited), but without a wide varied number of specimens to clone the species will eventually die out from genetic stagnation anyways. Perhaps they're just scraping off cells from those high-fashion feathers. There should be enough of them floating around that the feathers used will all come from different genetic samples (different birds).
Salis
Favorite
What is wrong with biotech? And what's wrong with the products thereof?
I don't see any problems with disease resistant plants. And I would have no problems with being disease resistant myself ('cept that they can't use the same methods, for many and varied reasons). While I suppose it is possible for the crops to become weeds, if it's done right (which requires research and experimentation), then there will not be problems
I also have no problems with experimentation on animals, and yes, humans. Being a furry and a transformationist, that's actually one of the things I look forward to in the next few decades (I wanna new body!).
Experimentation on humans also has major medical benefits. If your kidney was becoming disfunctional, would you rather they grow you a new one from your own cells (or DNA at least), or have to wait and, maybe, get one from a donor? I'd rather have the first, myself.
Knowlege is a valuable thing, and all stopping the research will do is slow down the increase in knowlege. It won't stop it, as illicit research will still continue, but it will make it be in the hands of those who would use it to do exactly what those who wish to stop the research are fearing. And we will have no defense, no way to counter it.
I'd say biotech is one of the best things to happen to us this century. Without it, many of the advance that proponents of nanotech envision would be impossible (particularly medical nano). Without it, we would be unable to grow skin for burn victims, and, according to some reports, soon entire new organs.
Rhys Dyfrgi
---
END OF LINE
OK, so I can perfectly grow a sack or five of spare parts, and have no fear of ruining my body, because I can just pop a new liver, set of lungs, or whatever in?
Yeah, sure. I bet the tobacco industry would just love that. *smirk*
Of course, this logic falls apart at a few critical points: how bad does your quality of life due to the malfunctioning organ have to degrade before it's time for a replacement?
Also, even if I can just pop in a new heart after a few too many five-egg omelettes with lots of nice greasy bacon, that's not going to fix my blood vessels. Do we have to clone those too?
And of course, eventually folks will run out of quality replacement parts, and whatever bad habits have been established are going to be even trickier to break (smoking, too much alcohol, too much caffeine, too much fat). It's not going to make us immortal.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
The solution is not as simple as just cloning the extinct creatures. You have to solve the question of "Why are they extinct?"
As man takes over more and more natural habitats and destroys the homes of these creatures, we are killing them and the only way of life they know. Will cloning them stop that destruction? No.
The Great Panda is going extinct from this destruction and the fact that they don't mate all that often. The only thing that kept them around before was a large enough space to have a large enough population to overcome the slow reproduction rate. Is cloning going to solve the space issue?
In the case of the Huia bird the reason they are extinct is that man hunted them down. Cloning might work in this case... but it won't in all others.
Persnickity
- Persnickity
We are a part of nature too! So if we interfere, this interference is part of natural evolution. Many people seem to believe that man made stuff is unnatural, as if we were something special next to nature.
Consider this: :)
This bird has of course an evolutionary advantage, as it is able to be cute enough in our view to motivate some effort to genetically restaurate it (as much as this is possible). You can bet that some ancient 10ft tall slimy hairy monster creature that went extinct won't get this privilege.
(I assume that billg or some other weirdo with bucks is not a big fan of ancient 10ft tall slimy hairy creatures
Has anyone looked at the impact that this will have on the ecosystem? What are the natural predators of this bird? What is their food source? Will they slide right back into the food chain? You can't just reintroduce a species unless you have looked at its impact. Sure, it's nice to bring a species back to life, but will that upset the already fragile balance of our ecosystems?
(dark, eerie voice:) All they wanted to do was bring an extinct species back to life.. All they wanted to do was to give nature a second chance.. .. and now they're back .. The flesh-eating Huia birds from hell! Buahhahahahahahaahahha..
But something went wrong. Something went very wrong in the laboratory, which had fatal precussions.
From director John Woo. Starring Bruce Willis as a farmer from New Zealand, and Gary Oldman as the master of the Huia-birds.
Coming soon to a park or forest near you.
Ethically, I think it makes perfect sense to undo damage that we have done. From a purely species-centric standpoint, more biodiversity makes for a more beautiful planet, as well as a healthier environment for us, overall. From an altruistic standpoint, our arrogance and shortsighted selfishness caused the extinction in the first place, and if we have the opportunity to undo our actions, we should.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
The tampering was done in the 1920s when man made hats out of the entire popupation. In a sense, this is an attempt to minimise that impact.
Which from a evolutionary point of view is a perfectly good reason as it gives you an increased chance of mating with women of objectionable ethics.
Here's the thing. In theory, resurrecting an extinct species is a Good Thing. Because of this, the idea of cloning an extinct species seems to be the ideal solution. In reality, however, this is hardly the case.
First, you see, you need to find intact DNA of the birds. Considering how long it has been, finding intact DNA of a Huia bird is going to be exceedingly difficult, particularly since you need to find the DNA of more than one (at the absolute least you need one male and one female).
One male and one female, however, is hardly enough. You need to find hundreds. Why? Well, consider this: if you clone two birds and mate them, the offspring will all be siblings by definition. Who, now, do you mate these with? Your only choice is to mate them with each other. This leads to an entire species of inbred birds, which (because the birds would inherit every single recessive gene which the parents posessed) would be devastating to the gene pool (even more so than unrestricted hunting, which is why cloning animals of an endangered species also would not work).
Our technology isn't at the point where engineering the necessary differences into hundreds of clones is a feasible thing. We haven't even mapped out the Huia bird genome yet; that alone will take years (if it's even possible, given that the species is extinct so the effects of the various genes cannot be observed).
That's the thing. This would be a great idea, if it could be done. But with our current technology, it can't. We're simply not at that point yet. It's a good dream to have, but for now that's all it will remain: a dream. Any attempts to do this now will result in nothing but millions of wasted dollars, money better spent developing the technology that will make this dream actually work.
That problem may be solvable by cross breeding with a similar bird, and then selectivly breeding the offspring back to the original genome. That is already being done with a few species where it wasn't possable to find enough breeding pairs to produce a robust gene pool.
The result isn't exactly the original species, but it is close, and has enough genetic diversity to be viable.
What do they plan to do with these newly revived birds once they 'make' them? Are they going to be re-released into the wild? No doubt in 70 years the ecosystem they once lived in has changed so that reinserting them may prove harmful to either the birds, the land, or both.
Man, I wish scientists would actually be a little more broad-minded about what they're doing.
Well, in the extremely UNlikely case that this situation were ever to occur, I'd allow the research. I would not, however, run screaming through the media saying "this is the greatest thing since the wheel and sliced bread!" unless I was VERY sure that it was that good.
...]
... and yes, RU486 has uses other than abortion.) But I'm tired. G'night. :)
As I've seen posted online elsewhere "If I invoke the deity Electricity, it doesn't matter from its perspective whether I use its power to light my house or electrocute my neighbor. The society I live in will have definite opinions on the matter, however."
Nothing wrong with progress or with scientific research. Lots of things wrong with progress-for-its-own-sake. I'm also VERY "iffy" on genetic-based science thanks to my experiences in the les/bi/gay community. Find us a conclusive "gay gene," and folks will start aborting genetically gay fetuses. OTOH, find "straight" folk with the "gay gene," and the fundies get more proof that we're a bunch of perverts who can change if we really WANT to. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. It sucks.
I'm not sure what the answer is. Disallow "abusive" uses of new technology? "Abusive" by whose standards? Like I said before, we can't just "implant" a moral code of any kind into someone's brain. [See the previous paragraph for one very obvious way in which this fails
The thing that you can't ignore, however, is the very real extent to which politics drives scientific and medical "discoveries." (Compare the history of Viagra with the history of either the Pill or RU486 sometime
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Yea, agriculture seemed like such a good idea until we found out how yucky soggy bread is.
:)
Nuts and berries forever!
It won't do any good to bring the bird back if we don't also take out it's number one predator, opposums. Since it is a marsupial, hence very different from all desired animals in New Zealand, it should have a very different immune system. If we could develop three seperate viruses that would be very fatal to marsupials and release them all over New Zealand at once then the opposum population should plummet to a level where they cannot find mates locally and die off. Not that this would solve all of NZ's wildlife problems but it would help one heck of a lot. You'd probably have to remove all captive kangaroos and wallabys etc. first.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
First, the article says that this is a result of a bunch of high school kids who decided to have a 'conference' on the subject. Great for them, and it looks like they even have a few financial backers, but I would be pretty surprised if this project still exists in a few years time.
Second, if this thing does work, it will be very interesting to see how they plan on reestablishing an entire species population from one (or a few) cloned birds. There is a common problem in genetics called a bottleneck. Every animal of a species contains specific genes for certain traits. When the population is reduced so greatly, the genes for some traits are lost forever. (Someone with some experience in genetics can correct if i'm (likely) wrong here). Some genes are lost forever. So the species that will result from this cloning project won't be a nearly as diverse as the original.
Anyway, I know this has been a problem for species like the California Condor, when its population dropped so low.
Third, Dolly the clone is having some serious genetic problems right now. She is not a normal sheep. She is aging quicker, because her very first embryonic cell was not a fresh cell like a normal embryo, but an already aged cell from her
"mother." I wonder what effect this will have on the birds if their entire species is founded this way...? Will they only live half the normal life-span of their original counterparts?
Anyway, I like the idea. I don't have any ethical problems with it, but I think there a lot of practical problems that need to be addressed, and I wouldn't expect this species to miraculously reappear in New Zealand, healthy and unchanged from its original.
LL
"If you are falling, dive." -Joseph Campbell
By saying that it's okay to clone previously-extinct creatures, we would be condoning even more widespread unnecessary slaughter of creatures. Poachers would feel even more justified in their actions because the scientists could just clone up some more. Farms of once-vanished creatures would spring up to stock hunting preserves.
We should let them lie in peace, and learn our lesson from their absence. Destroying creatures for any reason besides preservation of our own lives (either to serve as a source of nutrition or in self-defense) is an abhorrent practice. If learning that means we have a few guilt trips from time to time, then so be it.
Which Jurassic Park consequences are you talking about? Perhaps the consequences of carnivores eating meat? Yeah, real ecological tragedy there. The problems in that movie came about not because Hammond "tampered with nature", but because he thought of a Tyrannosaurus Rex as a cute toy and money-making endeavor, and because Nedry was money-hungry. All of the problems in that movie/book were caused by greed and ignorance, not by the cloning itself.
As for Gattica, and people with defects being considered "less than human", I invite you to spend some time observing people today. (in America; I don't know if this holds true in other countries) Listen to reports of people getting pulled over by police for DWB (driving while black). Watch tv news reports of white supremacist churches. Visit a junior high, and look at how the fat kids are treated, or how the ones with thick glasses are treated. All the horror of Gattaca exists today. And we don't even see people as less than human because they have "defects". We look down on them simply because they are visibly different from us.
I've noticed that whenever a contraversial scientific discovery or application of a technique is brought up in the press the same thing happens. Everybody points to Hollywood science fiction movies as some sort of proof that the scheme will be the doom of mankind. These are just stories, they're meant to entertain and occasionaly enlighten. The emphasis is entertainment though.
The public loves to see science gone awry and so science fiction authors and script writers use scientific cause and effect hyperbole to make money. This is a shame because in reality science and the scientific method has helped mankind more than its harmed it. Plagues were dampened in the bad old days by the scientific method: A statician noticed a correlation between disease outbreaks and proximities to contaminated water. The scientific method kept our ancestors alive: Eating berries from this bush makes us ill. Science brought us vaccines, analgesics, anti-inflamattories etc.
This doesn't mean blindly accept all scientific concepts or endeavours, but don't point at by-and-large poorly written science fiction as evidence.
The wilidlife in NZ became extremely specialised, due to its long isolation. Until man arrived, the only mamal was a fruit bat - all other creatures were birds or reptiles. The birds especially became very specialised with many losing the ability to fly (Kakapo, weka, kiwi etc.). The role filled by small mamals in most other places was filled by some fairly large insects (Weta for example)
I doubt that re-introducing the Huia will disrupt the ecosystem that much. There may be a problem that some of its food sources are now scarce though, which could make its continued survival difficult.
NZ has some really interesting (many extinct) animals. Some would be 'interesting' to clone - the moa, which was bigger than the emu, and an eagle that could hunt moa - now that had a seriously big wing-span (imagine if that crapped on your windscreen)
BTW, there is some serious searching going on at the moment as there may be evidence that the Huia is not extinct. A similar thing happened with the Takahe, which was believed (until fairly recently) to be extinct. Also, blaming its extinction on whites is being somewhat politically correct - the Maori played quite a large part in decimating this bird too.
Granted, this case of cloning birds is silly. This is being done as a PR stunt for the cloning industry to show the positive uses of cloning. Since it's politically correct to help animals, people will have a hard time arguing with this.
But as a general principle, "leave nature alone" is simply not an option. Unless you decide to execute 80% of the population, we have to tamper with nature, or nature will execute those people the slow way. Our only option is to try and understand the complex system we are living in a minimize unwanted side-effects.
Tampering with nature does produce unexpected consequences, but if we do our job right, the benefits outweigh the consequences. Penecillin saved millions of lives (perhaps even a billion), but it generated some drug resistant diseases. Do we regret penecillin? No. Someday we might, but as long as we can stay ahead of the bacteria, we'll be okay.
Or how about the plow? That gave us agriculture, (which gave us cities, etc.) but also indirectly helped cause the overpopulation problem we have today. Do I regret being well-fed? No! I have faith that we will figure out a way to deal with overpopulation.
So, you're right that "every time we tamper with nature, it has led to unexpected consequences." It has also led to some expected consequences which are often beneficial to us. The only decision we have to make is which is more significant.
KFC is going to love this. :)
Origional, barb, etc
--
CodeRed, the lower user #. No relation to SirCam.
Folks, really,
Cloning something that we've either driven into extinction, or that has died out on it's own, is playing God.
I strongly believe in Darwinism, and if the animal died out for natural reasons (without humans being the accountable cause) then we must leave nature be.
If the animal died out as a result of direct human abuse, then by bringing it back we are openning the door to further exploitation of that animal. This would not only be cruel to the reanimated species, but to all others, since the sense of human responsibility vis a vis the environment would diminish.
Once we see that we can be irresponsible with life, simply because we have the means to reverse extinction, we will be less willing to stop ourselves. Consider pachyderm hunting. It is now illegal to kill elephants and rhinoscerosesusesi for tusks and horns. It still happens, but the governments forbid it. If governments had the means of assuring that the animal will not go extinct, then the hunting bans would be lifted or relaxed, or at least, bribing officials would become even more common. In either case, the animals would be slain left and right.
We may be able to bring back the dead, in terms of species, but we'd be less respectful of the lives of individual animals (for one) and the welfare of entire species (for another) if we knew that all we have to do is splice some genes, and prosto chango!! We can all have a pet do-do bird, carrier pigeon, or velociraptor.
This is all just my opinion, but we get one chance at life after all. If we die (you, me, individually) we may be cloned as individuals too - but it won't be 'us' anymore. We only get one chance through this world, and if we screw it up, it's a lesson we have to learn, and a consequence we - and those who follow - must face.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Spielberg and Hitchcock, together at last!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Would having your telomeres longer make you start growing again and sprouting fresh new organs? Look, I'm 9'11" and have four arms. Let's play some basketball! Sounds like it could possibly trigger cancerous cells.
You're correct about the bottleneck; however, there's not much of a difference between reviving an extinct species, and restoring one that's almost extinct (in the case of the California Condor). Either way, the bottleneck exists. Your second point about the premature aging of the sheep is explained thusly: there is a strand of DNA called a telomere which dictates the cell age; it shortens each time the cell divides. The reason Dolly seems older is because she began life with pre-shortened telomeres in her DNA. However, any offspring that she, or any other similarly cloned animal, were to have would have normal-length telomeres (assuming a "natural" birth).