Could an 'Ark in a Freezer' Bring Back Lost Animals?

[1984hasarrived]

Ok, so this scares me a lot. 

I worry about the advances in cloning since Dolly the Sheep.  And this repository could be seen as a positive and sensible idea to preserve lost animals, or it could be seen as tampering with nature.

The world has managed for millions of years without human interference, evolution has taken place, and yes some animals have died out, but hey the world marches on.

Maybe there is a reason certain species die out, in the great scheme of things that is how it goes. 

Is it right to bring back extinct animals?

Inside the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research a few miles outside the city, in an unassuming building that smells like cleaning supplies, is the Frozen Zoo. It's an ark, really—"an ark in a freezer!" as Zach Baron writes in a feature article for GQ—comprising 10,000 samples that represent roughly 1,000 species and sub-species. It's something to hold onto as our planet loses everything from "vital little soldiers like bees" to the "big charismatic mega-fauna like elephants." And what a sweet irony, if a man-made creation like a freezer of vials turns out to restore some of the man-made catastrophes of modern time, from over-hunting to pollution to climate change.

Some of the animals in the Frozen Zoo still roam the Earth, while others, like the Hawaiian bird po'ouli, are already extinct, and still more are inching ever closer toward extinction. Baron reports that the "ark" is part museum, to catalog the diversity of life on our planet, and part resource for those who need samples for research. But a third reason quietly lives on, too: reanimation, or the possibility therein. The technology already exists, for example, to clone. Technological advances suggest that there is at least the possibility to someday renew lost ecosystems. Some notable scientists call it "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic," as Paul Ehrlich told the Washington Post last year. Saving cells isn't, after all, saving species. Yet. (A quarter of all mammals are now at risk of extinction.)

Could a frozen zoo one day bring back extinct animals?

[guohua]

I've heard where they've wanted to bring back the Wooly Mammoth.
OK, OK, I found the article I read, it was 24 animals they wanted to Clone, Yes I think it's Scary, but think of the fun we could have Hunting them 

On Friday at a National Geographic-sponsored TEDx conference, scientists met in Washington, D.C. to discuss which animals we should bring back from extinction. They also discussed the how, why, and ethics of doing so.
They called it "de-extinction."
There are a few guidelines for which ancient species are considered, and sadly, dinosaurs are so long dead they aren't in the picture. Their DNA has long ago degraded, so researchers are fairly sure that Jurassic Park will never happen.
They chose the animals using the following criteria: Are the species desirable — do they hold an important ecological function or are they beloved by humans? Are the species practical choices — do we have access to tissue that could give us good quality DNA samples or germ cells to reproduce the species? And are they able to be reintroduced to the wild — are the habitats in which they live available and do we know why they went extinct in the first place?
But, this still leaves plenty of other animals on the table. The list of candidates is actually pretty long, considering. The cost of de-extinction varies by species but projects could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. Then there's also the cost of housing the animals once they are created, and re-introducing them into the wild and protecting them from poachers once they are there.
But, if you were the zoo that had that one Woolly mammoth or saber-toothed cat, these costs just might be worth it.
Here are the 24 animals they are hoping to one day resurrect.

To see the animals go here: Source  Or Click On  "View As: One Page "

[senona]

Way back in school, in science class they taught us that "species will go extinct, while at the same time new ones will be discovered".

In other words, that is part of the cycle of evolution of life on this planet.


Sure deforestation doesn't help, especially when it starts messing with the ecosystem such as declining bee population.



But to "bring bacK' lost animals makes me think along the lines of Jurrasic Park.
Yes, it was just a SyFy movie...but the point is, some creatures were separated from Man by millions of years for a reason.


And you know damn well, there is going to be that one guy, who has to see if he can bring back the T-Rex, just because he can.


They are already using the excuse to save "humanity" to clone the Mammouth as shown here.



Anyhow, what may start out with good intentions will only be abused, as history of Man has shown us time and again.





I personally say leave things to Mother Nature.
Let the natural world do it's thing.

Life comes and goes, that is a fact.

No sense in using the fear mongering of "it is the end of the world, thanks to global warming" to play God with extinct species.
And many scientists would see GW  as a free pass to do just that.