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Scientists say that they have taken a step closer to recreating extinct animals like the mammoth, after successfully cloning living mice from donor animals that had been frozen.
A team of Japanese scientists produced the clones after thawing mice that had been frozen at minus 20C for up to 16 years.
Clones had been created previously only from live donor cells; cloning from frozen cells has been seen as difficult because DNA can be damaged by ice crystals.
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Don’t let these sci-fi promises of resurrecting extinct species go to your head, allowing you to accept the current rate of habitat loss and species destruction because perhaps, in the future, we may be able to bring back any extinct species we choose:
As a caveat to reports that they might be able to resurrect extinct creatures, the Japanese team added: “However, it has been suggested that the ‘resurrection’ of frozen extinct species [such as the woolly mammoth] is impracticable, as no live cells are available, and the genomic material that remains is inevitably degraded.”
We have a long way to go before we can bring Godzilla or his dinosaur cousins back from extinction. However, we may be able to “resurrect” extinct species if we deliberately preserve their DNA through careful freezing. This is great, but wouldn’t it be easier to just take the proper measures to ensure animals don’t become extinct in the first place?
I am excited about this advancement. I want to be first in line when they figure out how to clone sabre-toothed tigers and homing pigeons.
Related articles on the web:
- Woolly mammoths could be resurrected after cloning breakthrough
- Frozen mice cloned, mammoths may be next
- How likely is mammoth cloning?
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