Scientists create embryo of an extinct species

[Gibsons]

WHOOSH!

Once again, the $64,000 question is how you're so sure about those gaps. Is the information truly missing or are we missing it because the current tech isn't up to the job? This is a science in its infancy, there's a lot left to learn both with the DNA and with the tools used to read the DNA. Science could be sitting on a complete strand of dinosaur DNA and not even know it because the tech can't see it YET.

Take a few hundred copies of War and Peace, and slice them all up such that the largest pieces contain maybe two letters, three if you're very lucky. Hand this pile over to someone and see if they can reassemble the book. That's about what it is. There would be millions of ways to assemble a book from this, but it's unlikely they'll get War and Peace (unless they've already read it, but in this case, they haven't).

Best prospects are probably from extrapolating backwards from birds and reptiles. That would still involve a lot of best guesses.

 

[GasX]

yea, that plus the lower air pressure might be tough for them. The O2 was high enough that they could get more O2 per breath to support their size.

Thought I read a while back that smaller animals didn't even need lungs at that point but I can't find any links to confirm that.

Our air is 21% O2. It was in the upper 20's for a while way way back in time. That allowed for giant insects as they "breathe" via diffusion of gas through their skin. Increased oxygen might be somewhat beneficial for large reptiles, but they have lungs and blood and hemoglobin and fully saturating the hemoglobin in your blood is not a huge challenge at 21% with good lung function.

 

[SZLiao214]

I just want to see what a mammoth steak taste like.

 

[zinfamous]

I just want to see what a mammoth steak taste like.

school first. :awe:

 

[Linflas]

I would like to see them bring back Dodos and Passenger Pigeons, both made extinct by the stupidity of humans much like we are doing with that list in an earlier post.

 

[CZroe]

I would like to see them bring back Dodos and Passenger Pigeons, both made extinct by the stupidity of humans much like we are doing with that list in an earlier post.

The problem is, passenger pigeons are still doomed because they can't make the enormous flocks required to reform their communities and they won't mate without that. They went extinct even though there were still hundreds of thousands or millions when the problem was identified and the species was protected. Even if they could clone them in such huge numbers, there's no telling how much of the flock behavior was nature vs. nurture, so it may be impossible to sustain.

 

[Pheran]

This article adds an interesting ethical twist to this possibility. If we could bring back a Neanderthal for study, should we?

 

[SlitheryDee]

This article adds an interesting ethical twist to this possibility. If we could bring back a Neanderthal for study, should we?

Absolutely. Raising it to adolescence and then dissecting it would greatly increase our knowledge of neanderthal mental and physical development.










(I'm j/k btw)

 

[Jeffg010]

This article adds an interesting ethical twist to this possibility. If we could bring back a Neanderthal for study, should we?

 

[SagaLore]

Take a few hundred copies of War and Peace, and slice them all up such that the largest pieces contain maybe two letters, three if you're very lucky. Hand this pile over to someone and see if they can reassemble the book. That's about what it is. There would be millions of ways to assemble a book from this, but it's unlikely they'll get War and Peace (unless they've already read it, but in this case, they haven't).

Not quite. It would be larger, such as sentence fragments. Instead of giving it to someone, you give it over to a computer. We already have technology doing this.

 

[Sonikku]

Fascinating now, but you won't all be smiling when this technology is used to bring back Master D.