Cloning may be
considered a matter only for mad scientists. In fact, people could think that
humans have no power over the creation or reproduction of life. It is very known
that it works—Dolly the sheep, the first cloned being, was evidence of that—and
scientific community have tried to accept it. However, some men of science
consider cloning as a taboo. This judgment on cloning hasn’t affected
scientists’ work on this. Recent cloning trials have had a common purpose: to bring
extinct animals to life.
How is that possible?
The many fossils and rests of those species provide DNA chains that may be
intact or slightly incomplete. Having that, they can fix them using genes from
similar chains. Finally, scientists put the chains on an embryo of a
genetically compatible animal. This embryo will develop in the uterus of a
female of the animal, and that’s it. We have a new animal!
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| Pyrenean Ibex was succesfully cloned in 2009 |
Several species have
been “candidates” to come again to life. A successful trial was the cloning of Pyrenean
Ibex, a type of wild goat from Europe. Scientists cloned it using the DNA from
the last known ibex which died in 2000. The baby goat was born, but only lived
for seven minutes. This breakthrough motivated other scientists to make trials,
and other animals like the Tasmanian tiger or Dodo have chances to be among us
again.
Other animals have
considered to be cloned. However, geneticists are going beyond because some of
them consider species like the woolly mammoth, the saber-toothed cat, even the tyrannosaurus.
These may be dangerous trials, with dangerous results.
Let’s think. Should
cloning be only for “recent species”? Could we expect results like happened in Jurassic Park if scientists clone
prehistoric animals?
I found very interesting the fact of studying new alternatives “to get animals back into life”. The study of real animals allows the investigation of environmental conditions of ancient times because as far as I know, animals (including human beings) get adapted to the weather and environmental conditions, so it would be easier to study what the conditions were at that time. O maybe the body structures. It all sounds very interesting as a matter of help for scientific discoveries.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, the excessive intervention and manipulation of genes seems to me an unnatural process. Also, the selection of the animals that might be brought back into life is difficult because it all will depend on the objective of the investigation.
In my opinion, animal cloning should be done only if there is a sustancial motive for doing it. For example, finding a cure for a disease or saving a human being. But playing God just for no reason, or for the ambition for knowledge, it is not plausible.
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