
Extinct ibex is resurrected by cloning - ksvs
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/4409958/Extinct-ibex-is-resurrected-by-cloning.html
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rms
Wow, how intrepid.

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Klonoar
Wow, for some reason I thought I could actually be the first to crack that
one.

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kin
This gives me high hopes for the woolly mammoth clone, although the clones
seem to live no longer than a day.

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vaksel
why do people care so much about species going extinct? Millions of species
have gone extinct before....millions of species will go extinct again. Its the
cycle of life.

I mean sure its pretty horrible that a whole species goes extinct...but why
does it matter if there are 300 species of goat or 299.

For every species that goes extinct, another 2 spring up to take its place.
Adapt or die. Why should we coddle the inferior species? Let the nature take
its course. Remember, if the dinosaurs didn't go extinct, man wouldn't have
survived.

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mattmaroon
Species didn't used to go extinct the way they do now. Also, new ones don't
spring up anymore. We've fundamentally destroyed the natural process by
drastically altering every single ecosystem out there.

The reason to care is that we could, very easily, be left with nothing but
rats and pigeons if we don't.

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gravitycop
_The reason to care [about species extinction] is that we could, very easily,
be left with nothing but rats and pigeons_

[http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR2...](http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR20.txt)

 _We ought also consider the species of animals whose numbers are increased
when the human population increases - chickens, goats, cattle, minks, dogs,
cats, laboratory white mice, and canaries._

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mattmaroon
I'm sure it would make the aurochs feel better to know that after we
slaughtered it into extinction, we kept the domesticated version around to
live in tiny pens and provide us milk and/or beef until we slaughter them too.
And wolves will be happy to know their domesticated brethren are in humane
shelters everywhere after we gun the last one down from a helicopter.

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gravitycop
_we slaughtered [the aurochs] into extinction_

Humans also created a similar replacement:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heck_Cattle#Controversy>

_Heck cattle are considered by some the most suitable cattle breed for low
intensity grazing systems in certain types of nature reserves, due to their
ruggedness and lack of need for human care. Heck cattle today are propagated
in some places to fulfill the role of extinct megafauna in the ecosystem._

A replacement was also created for the extinct tarpan:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heck_horse>

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mattmaroon
It's a replacement from the standpoint of humans who want meat and/or labor.
From an ecological standpoint, our attempts to create replacements often fail
miserably.

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gravitycop
_From an ecological standpoint, our attempts to create replacements often fail
miserably._

Source? What is an ecological standpoint?

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davi
DNA not the whole story: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics>

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asorbus
Why didn't they just dist-upgrade a heron?

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cubicle67
That would be an ibis you're thinkng of?

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zandorg
I think you could cross-reference different sources to error-check the
incomplete DNA.

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jraines
Sweet. Can we have Jurassic Park now? Why or why not?

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burke
Apparently finding a full intact DNA sample is "impossible"... but here's
hoping. :)

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ericb
What happens if you average over several non-intact samples and take the
common denominator? Or layer the DNA over a descendant based on certain
markers? Given enough damaged "files" and good diff tools, I feel like hacking
together a working one would be possible. Can someone who knows more tell me
what I'm missing?

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ars
DNA is more complicated than that. I don't fully understand the process, but I
believe it works like this:

You can't read the atoms in DNA one after the other and make a list. You chop
the DNA into pieces and pattern match sections (fragments) against markers.
Then you try to put fragments together by matching overlaps.

But if you have sections that repeat, or have a lot of the same atom over and
over, you can't directly read those.

Usually when they say: "we published the DNA" they mean the "coding section" -
those are the sections that can make proteins. But there is a lot more to DNA,
non-coding, or junk DNA that can not be easily (or at all?) read.

So for the comment above yours, I think what they have is fragments, but no
overlapping sections, so that can't put it together into a whole. It's not
like a file with gaps - it's random pieces of it, of random lengths, in a
random order.

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gravitycop
_You can't read the atoms in DNA one after the other and make a list._

Discrete units of information on DNA strands are not _atoms_. They are
_nucleotides_ or _base pairs_. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleotide>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_pair>

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ars
I know, I was just trying to keep things simple.

Or, you can use the other definition of atom: indivisible part, and an atom of
DNA is it's smallest building block :)

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jackowayed
The coincidence between this and Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex being out clearly
demonstrates the power of Linux.

It's even playing god now! All hail our new Canonical master!

Prepare for the Jackalope to become real sometime after April.

