
Only 3 northern white rhinos left on Earth - mengjiang
http://www.rawstory.com.proxy.parle.co/2015/11/only-3-northern-white-rhinos-left-on-earth/
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onion2k
The fact that these animals have been hunted to extinction should be evidence
that their horn has no medicine value. If it worked we'd have rhinoceros
farms.

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danieltillett
Not necessarily. Rhinos would only be farmed if they could be patented. Of
course rhino horn has no medical value, but it could still be hunted to
extinction even if it did.

On this topic silphium went extinct despite being highly useful medically [1].

1\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium)

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dikdik
Lots of things are farmed that are not patented.

From your own source, "The identity of silphium is highly debated."

-_-

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danieltillett
That is because silphium was exploited to extinction, much like the rhino.

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reidrac
Why the proxy?

This is the direct link: [http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/only-3-northern-
white-rhinos...](http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/only-3-northern-white-rhinos-
left-on-earth/)

EDIT: actually I found the proxy more interesting than the story itself.

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nailer
dang can you fix the link?

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ziahamza
Should now be fixed! The discussions appear on the top right :)

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nailer
Nope still going to some proxy site.

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Camillo
With Chinese quackery behind the demand for rhino horn, and with China's
increasing presence in Africa, I am really surprised that the Chinese
government is not doing more to save the rhinos. If I were a high-ranking
communist bureaucrat, I would see this as an easy chance to score points for
national (and personal) prestige, yet there seems to be zero interest. Why?

~~~
ziahamza
I don't think its just China. Horns used to be one of the ingredients in
classic chinese medicine, but its drastically reduced next to none after horns
were banned a couple of decades ago. India itself is a big importer of horns
and I think much bigger then China

~~~
random_ind_dude
>India itself is a big importer of horns and I think much bigger then China

That's not true at all. In fact India has two-thirds of the world's great one-
horned rhino population in the Kaziranga National Park.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaziranga_National_Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaziranga_National_Park)

There are armed guards protecting the rhinos and they've even shot and killed
poachers, though poaching still happens due to demand from Southeast Asia.

[http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/3-poachers-killed-by-
forest-g...](http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/3-poachers-killed-by-forest-
guards-in-assams-kaziranga-national-park-726881)

As per the article below, Vietnam is the country that is driving the current
demand for rhino horns.

[http://qz.com/82302/theres-a-country-that-will-
pay-300000-pe...](http://qz.com/82302/theres-a-country-that-will-
pay-300000-per-rhino-horn-to-cure-cancer-and-hangovers-and-its-wiping-out-
rhinos/)

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DrScump
Story from BBC: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-
canada-34897767](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34897767)

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roflchoppa
Are there not issues of running into genetic defects from having such a small
population to breed from?

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haser_au
Humans suck sometimes

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gd1
Uh-huh. We're probably the only species to ever even give a fuck that we drove
another species to extinction.

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saiya-jin
back in 2008 when I visited Chitwan national park in Nepal, we were shown what
locals claimed white rhinos (mother and calf). riding on the back of elephant,
rhinos were calm and didn't notice us.

either things went much worse, or those were not white ones. anyway, 3 rhinos
left means species is extinct, unless mighty genetics step in in near future.

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jlebrech
we should at least keep backups of the DNA.

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jnaour
It's something that I was wondering: is there some kind of DNA library with
samples of every species DNA, us included? I'm not a biologist but I guess
with samples of 100 individuals it could be possible to "recreate" a whole
species.

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amelius
I'm not a biologist either. I think the problem is that DNA breaks down when
stored. And you cannot store it digitally, because the way the molecules are
folded contains information as well (besides just the base-pair letters ACTG),
and we can't sequence the folding yet. But like I said, IANAB.

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mengjiang
While DNA samples would be a great thing to have, I'd hate for that to be the
only trance of them left in the future. Imagine one day, when all we will have
is a huge book of DNA samples of everything we used to know.

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philh
The people taking DNA samples agree with you. It's not like they just really
want a sample of rhino DNA. They're keeping them so that maybe some day we'll
be able to use that sample to bring back actual rhinos.

