Scientists plan to "resurrect" 4 extinct animals
The woolly mammoth
If the first complete specimen of woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) was discovered in 1799, many other findings, such as blood samples, provide a better understanding of this once extensive species Siberia to North America before extinction there about 11,000 years. At issue: climate change and perhaps overhunting by humans or a virus. Of US researchers hope to soon complete the sequencing of the genome of the species began in 2006 In parallel, they deepen the design methodology of an animal very similar to the original case. Japanese scientists are also working on the question of the DNA of individuals (it would remain 10,000 in the Siberian ice) is injected into eggs of elephants. The hybrids then reproduce them, and, eventually real mammoths. The first results are expected by ... 50 years.
The Tasmanian tiger
Also known thylacine, the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) was a striped marsupial about the size of a wolf. Living in Tasmania, but also in Australia and New Guinea, the species is considered extinct since 1936, due to eradication campaigns and the introduction of dogs on its territory. Researchers wishing to revive the animal for several reasons: it is not a canine, but a marsupial, a group of mammals including kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, wombats and possums Virginia, moreover, carnivore. Like all marsupials, the female was incubating her young in a pouch, but it was the only species in which the male also had a pocket that had to protect his genitals. The animal raises the fascination and some say still observe. In 2005, an Australian magazine offered $ 1.25 million reward to anyone who could prove his existence.
The passenger pigeon
The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), also known as pigeon migratory,
was endemic to North America in the early nineteenth century. Its then
estimated at over 5 billion population of individuals was deemed harmful by
farmers and therefore depleted in a few decades only. According to
researchers, this case can not be brought back to life with the cloning
technique, because the DNA of a few stuffed specimens in museums are no longer
functional. Rather, it is to rebuild some genes traveler dove and then bring
them into the genome of stem cells from rock dove, a living species. They
would then be transformed into germ cells, the precursors of sperm and
oocytes. Injected into eggs rock dove, they migrate to the sexual organs of
developing embryos. Hatched pigeons look like normal rock doves, but are
carriers of modified germ cells. In breeding, they would give birth to a
generation whose individuals have traits of the traveler dove (colors, long
tail, long wings, etc.). Several crossings would complete reproductions and
produce birds like the extinct species.
Gastric brooding frog
As its name suggests, this kind of frog swallowing eggs which then developed
into his stomach, digestive function after taking birth tadpoles. The only two
known species (Rheobatrachus vitellinus and R. silus) were endemic in
Queensland, eastern Australia. They became extinct in the mid-1980s, following
the introduction of human pathogenic fungi in their natural range, among other
factors. Australian researchers are moving in the "resurrection" unique frogs
in the world, living embryos were produced from genetic material extracted
from dead specimens by a technique of nuclear transfer of somatic cell, but
they have so far not survive. The experiments are therefore continuing to give
life to a tadpole, then perhaps the first adult. Meanwhile, scientists improve
preservation techniques cold embryonic cells and sperm of endangered amphibian
species, but also other animals.
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