The Week
Now, centuries later, the same humans are trying to create a new version of the dodo, one that is not “dumb”. And, it won’t be alone. Scientists are also working on bringing back the woolly mammoth and the thylacine, a Tasmanian marsupial last seen in the early 19th century. Colossal Biosciences, a Texas-based “de-extinction company” that uses genetic engineering to “revive” extinct species, says the dodo will be with us in 2028. Its team of scientists has been assembling and sequencing the dodo genome (the total amount of DNA in an organism) using DNA extracted from a skull in the collection of the Natural History Museum of Denmark. Children of the 1990s will remember how scientists used mosquito DNA to bring back dinosaurs in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. This, though, seems more realistic.
“Our mission is to make extinction a thing of the past,” Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary biologist and chief science officer at Colossal, tells THE WEEK. “About half of the species on earth are threatened with extinction in the next 50 to 100 years, and much of this is due to changes in habitat because of humans. We should be improving and increasing the number of tools and options available to us in terms of how we might protect species, genetic diversity and ecosystems.” More
Just grab the Tacoma Mayor and City Council, stretch a rubber glove over their head and shove a feather duster up their ass and put them on display at the National Zoo and mission accomplished.
What is any of that worth? Go cure cancer. Be useful you idiots!
Better not be on a grant program.
Bunch of Dr. Frankensteins with nothing better to do.
Instead of reviving lost species like the dodo, find ways to protect the ones today that are endangered. Start with the Siberian Tiger and Clouded Leopard. These species are too beautiful to lose.
If I remember correctly, more than half the species on Earth are single cell oranisms or viruses.
Nothing like statistics to try and scare the hell out of demwits.
“It isn’t nice to fool mother nature.”
It isn’t very smart either.
I’m betting nuclear fusion will get here first
I sorry but this is way cool, as cool as Elons plans to go to Mars. Selectively bringing back extinct species is an amazing idea.
I’d be happy if they’d bring back the intelligent, pretty, quiet liberal woman. If it ever existed.
Dodos went extinct because they were dossal and delicious. So delicious that none ever reached civilization. Reviving them could create a whole new poultry industry.