I read David Ehrenfeld's article "Resurrected mammoths and dodos? Don't count on it" on The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/23/de-extinction-efforts-are-waste-of-time-money). The article begins by discussing the ways that scientists are attempting to bring back extinct species. By injecting the DNA of a dead animal into the egg of whatever its closest living relative is, one can bring back an almost perfect copy of the extinct animal. This science could work if done perfectly, however there are many issues surrounding de-extinction.
The first issue the author raises is care for any newborn previously extinct species. Ehrenfeld discusses the issue of attempting to bring back the passenger pigeon using the band-tailed pigeon as its mother, saying: “They (passenger pigeons) fly and mate differently; they eat different foods; and they have different calls. Maternal care is critically important for an infant's normal development. That baby bird will live in a cage labeled "passenger pigeon", but it might not be a real passenger pigeon, and it isn't going to bring them back from extinction.” His point being that a bird with passenger pigeon DNA is not truly a passenger pigeon if it doesn’t act like one.
(A drawing of the passenger pigeon)
The next issue raised is that DNA can be “read” differently by different organisms, because of the way they react to different stimuli. The author compares this phenomenon to literature. He says, all the words for every book ever written are somewhere in the dictionary, but if you scan through a dictionary you won’t necessarily find Hamlet or even anything similar to it. The final issue brought up is that not all species could be brought back, and the ones that could would be extremely expensive to resurrect.
I really liked that the author brought up the issues related to de-extinction. All I have ever heard on the topic is about how promising it is and that it should be invested in. However, there are so many practical issues with bringing back any extinct species that it almost renders the concept useless. Although I would love to see a living wooly mammoth or a dodo, I agree with Ehrenfeld that we should be working on keeping the species we have right now instead of trying to bring back the ones we have already lost. This article is related to our biology class because it talks about DNA and how it works. It also discusses why certain proteins are translated and others are not. I really liked this article because it was very different than everything else I've heard about de-extinction.
This was a really interesting topic to read about. I didn't know that it was even possible to bring extinct species back. Even though it would be really cool, I think it would be a waste of money and time. Scientists need to worry about not letting the species alive now go extinct. We need to learn from our mistakes in the past, and not let them happen again. Also, I found it interesting that even if a bird has passenger pigeon DNA, it's not truly a passenger pigeon if it doesn't act like one. Overall, great job!
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree that instead of trying to bring back species that we lost we should be focusing on the species that we already have. The amount of species that we could bring back pales in comparison to the amount of species that we could save if we work on preserving the endangered species we have today. We should use the money that we have invested in resurrecting the extinct animals on use it on things that can have a direct benefit to the things alive today.
ReplyDeleteI also agree we should focus more on the species we have living now. Of course it would be cool to see a living wooly mammoth, but for what purpose would it serve. This also relates to our ecology unit in biology. Bringing back enough of a species so that they can not live in captivity could really mess up an ecosystem. Humans already make enough of an impact on our ecosystems, we don't need to be bringing back random animals from the past. Nice job looking at de-extinction in a way most people do not.
ReplyDeleteI found your article interesting because I never knew that it was actually possible to bring back extinct species. However I agree that we should focus on the species of animals that we already have instead of trying to bring back extinct species. To bring back extinct animals would take a lot of money and the money could be better used to save animals that are going extinct now. Overall I really enjoyed your article because I learned a lot of new facts. Great Job!
ReplyDeleteThis topic is incredibly interesting to me and I'm happy you posted something about it! I've always known that there are probably ways to bring back an extinct species but I never knew exactly how. This just goes to show how much more scientists have learned and discovered in their separate fields. I totally agree that we should focus on saving the existing species rather than bringing back extinct ones. It may be cool to bring a species back and to see i for real, but, like Parker said, we could save so many more species than those that we could bring back. If we were to bring back other species, our attention would be spread so thin that more and more species would slip through our fingers and die off. Good job on your post! It was interesting and insightful!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your blog post and I did not even know that it was possible for us to bring extinct species back to life! Although this is an incredible process that shows how advanced scientists in our world are, I agree with Liz and think that it would be a waste of money and time. Organisms should only be brought to life if they help our world now in 2013. If they do not add a lot to the world, or are not needed, we should spend our time and money focusing on saving organisms that are important to us or about to become extinct too! I also agree with Mary Beth and think that if scientists were so absorbed in bringing extinct species back from the dead, they might not notice more and more species becoming extinct because they needed certain resources or were not given attention. I also really liked the author's comparison to the quote from Hamlet; it really helped me understand that DNA can be read differently by different organisms because of the way they react to other stimuli. Overall, great post! It really created a great conversation and led me to thinking about other topics surrounding extinction.
ReplyDeleteThis article was very insightful for me! I used to only hear about the perks of bringing back extinct animals, and your article did a great job of explaining the cons to this idea. We shouldn't spend tons of money on something we don't even know for sure will end up working in the end, or work to the point that we want it to. Like you said, the Passenger Pigeon could have the DNA of a Passenger Pigeon but not actually be one. I agree with that idea, because depending on how an animals grows up and what influences they have as a baby, changes how they end up in the future. I also agree with you that we need to focus more on saving the animals from becoming extinct now, and put the money towards that, instead of trying to bring them back later on once they've already gone extinct. Overall, great article!
ReplyDeleteI found this topic very interesting and I think you did a great job explaining what the article says. First I would like to say I completely agree that we should focus on keeping the species we have right now alive. But I also think that being able to bring back an extinct animal would be amazing. It would open up doors that could never have been opened with out the discovery of how to resurrect an animal. Imagine 100 years after we learn how to resurrect an animal. All I can think of is resurrecting a person. Imagine bringing Albert Einstein back to life, if we still have a sample of his DNA. It would be amazing to have a genius again to invent and discover even more for the human race. Or bring Steve Jobs back and have his invent even greater technology. But like you said, we can bring these people back but they wont be the same if they don't act the same, that is why we would need to try to put them back into their old environment to make them as smart as they were before, the first time. This topic is very interesting and I think some how we should find a balance between saving the animals we have now. And bringing back animals that have gone extinct. That would be a huge step in the scientific world, and as a human race.
ReplyDeleteI think this article was very interesting and factual. I think keeping the species alive should be extremely important because once their gone their gone. But I agree with parker that if we are going to bring back animals we should bring back animals that could help us fight diseases or find a cure. Also bring back other species could help us save others. Overall I think you did a very good job.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your interpretation of this article, and think that the concept of bringing back species based on their DNA is inherently flawed in that we can never truly recreate the species. But, is that truly the intent of bringing back extinct species? Surely scientists also see the flaw in reintroducing an organism into an environment that has drastically changed since its removal. Maybe the intent of bringing back extinct species is not to simply reintroduce them into the wild, but in fact to study them to use science to learn more about the their history and the world they came from. So, therefore, it could potentially be okay if a carrier pigeon is kept in a crate labeled "carrier pigeon" and not in an actual carrier pigeon nest (or wherever carrier pigeons lived; I don't know, as they are extinct.)
ReplyDeleteThe article that you chose was very interesting, and I definitely agree with your stance on not bringing back extinct species. We should be focusing on keeping the species that we have and putting money towards that, instead of trying to play with the idea of bringing back what we have already lost. Like you said, it would be amazing to see a wooly mammoth or dodo, but I don't think that it's necessary for the time being. It would be cool to resurrect some animals that we have lost, but if they were placed in a different environment and acted differently, they wouldn't exactly be able to be called what they were previously. The thought of de-extinction certainly is something to keep in mind for future purposes, but for now, we should concentrate on our foremost priorities. Overall, great job on the article!
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good point. Though science is pretty advanced, and we could do it, why? We could probably create a bomb to blow up the earth, but we don't. We might even be able to build a space elevator going for miles into the atmosphere, but we don't. When all's said and done, there's no point. And another thing that sort of applies to ancient species that died out, how would they fit into local ecosystems? Like, wooly mammoths would have it really tough in a temperate climate, because it would be too warm most of the time, and there wouldn't be enough space for them. They would only be confined to zoos, just a curiosity, which seems useless and kind of cruel considering how terrible some zoos are. And lastly, if we did want to ressurect the species, we would have to find a lot of diverse sources of harvestable cells. I don't think there have been many perfectly-preserved wooly mammoths found. I was wondering, though, when you wrote that the DNA could be read wrong by the parent species, did you mean that the cloned animal might be born with defects, or just not at all? Anyways, that was a great post.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opinion, and I found the topic very interesting. I think there would be no point in resurrecting a pigeon or mammoth if it isn't quite the real thing. In essence, you are creation an entirely new species, which could become invasive if you reintroduced it into today's ecosystems. I think it would make sense if you were trying to repopulate a severely endangered species, but not reintroduce an extinct one. It would be a waste of time, money and brainpower.
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ReplyDeletePretty interesting and intriguing article. Keeping the species alive should be important considering that humans don't appear to have the technology to bring them back, so once they're gone, they're gone. However, if we were to bring them back, the species might have trouble adapting to the new type of climate, such as the mammoth. If the mammoth is brought back to this climate, the mammoth would possibly not survive. Not to mention the overcrowding with bringing back all these species if we were to. In my opinion, we should bring back the species that would benefit everybody, not just because we want them to come back
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