Ancient DNA Could Return Extinct Species to Wild
September 10, 2014| |
The last passenger pigeon named Martha died on September 1, 1914. This species once numbered three billion or more, are now extinct. But what if the passenger pigeons could be bought back? They can't be raised from the dead but de-extinction can make this happen. Scientists can get DNA from stuffed corpses in museums like Martha, who now lies in Smithsonian Institution. Researchers can choose the most important genes that define the species and then use genetic engineering to edit the DNA of a closely-related species. This is what de-extinction pioneer Ben Novak of University of California does. Novak and partners focus on getting genetic information from stuffed passenger pigeons and sequencing the genome of closely-related band-tailed pigeon. At present, 32 samples have had the genetic code in their mitochondia sequenced.
"If we succeed, the world gets a new organism," Novak says. "If we fail, we learn things that are valuable and the world isn't left with another extinct species."
Read more at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-dna-could-return-passenger-pigeons-to-the-sky/.
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