Someone brought this topic to my attention. Thanks Kennysills!. When will we successfully clone an extinct creature? Can we do it? …and if so what creature, species and life forms need to be brought back to life or should they be brought back to life?

As Dr. Ian Malcolm said of extinct dinosaurs in movie Jurrassic Park, "this is not some species that was obliterated by deforestation, or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs, uh, had their shot, and nature 'selected' them for extinction!"

Would an extinct species that was brought back to life in the modern world be beneficial to our modern world and ecosystem or is this something we would do to satisfy our endless curiosity. Should these re-creations be allowed to roam in the wild or would they have to penned up in a zoo or wildlife park, where would they fit in.

Which creatures would you like to see be cloned and brought back to life?

I thought this was an interesting storyfrom the current news about cloning extinct creatures:

'Frozen Zoo' Aims to Unthaw Solution to Extinction said

Last year, a Spanish team of researchers successfully cloned the Pyrenean ibex, a form of wild mountain goat that went extinct in 2000. The ibex kid died just minutes after it was born via a surrogate Spanish goat due to malformed lungs. Like the dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park," the missing links of the ibex's genetic chain were filled in by a comparable yet ultimately different species, which may explain the deformities of the ibex's lungs.

Read the whole story at http://www.globalshift.org/2010/09/22/frozen-zoo-aims-to-unthaw-solution-to-extinction/

Part of the whole issue is CAN we perfect a method to clone living and extinct species and what will be the long term health-survival forecast for those scientific experiments. Once a stable method for cloning or re-creating species has been achieved, how will these creature be used and beyond that, accepted by the general public? As I have seen, people have not shown greater preference for genetically altered things like, say, food. An example is the big salmon recently in the news which the FDA is considering approval - will salmon lovers prefer this over 'naturally' grown product?.

…and as long as we are talking about food, if we did bring back the dinosaurs (what am I saying!! ) a beast like the Apatosaurus, would there come along some enterprising soul who creates a fast food franchise like "Flintstones to Go" and market "Bronto" burgers for those with a big appetite. I can hear it now "breakfast of preditors"

What a boon to the food chain for those big game carnovoire's among us! …but then the greenies among us would be alarmed at the cost in trees leaves in feeding those neo-genetic sauropods!!! …uh oh, I just thought about the greenhouse gasses from the dino's flatulence!!!

Tell me what was the upside to cloning again?

mmm... even if we get able to clone a dinosaur.. what for? i mean.. for sure it would be more like a "new animal that looks like a dinosaur" than a dinosaur itself... and wahts the point of studying the behaviour of a single one dinosaur in a world totally diferent from the one it came from?

YES!ABSOLUTELY!the best answer i can give is what i would do.I would start by cloneing say a breeding pair of hadrosaurs,maybe a basilosaurus or dorudon.throw in a smilodon,mammoth and maybe a few more that possible to hybrid w/contemporary animals.we worry about that getting out of control while some of the most brilliant minds are createing biologicalweapons and storeing them in underground military bases as we speak right?no i would say it shud be monitored and exposed so the proper safegaurds are in place.but what can we learn for example?a dinosaurs immune system more than likely has some benificials in it and sauropod dung blended into the fertilizers of huge produce companies...ect.and the world comeing together to create these lives of the past instead of WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION,selling each other plutonium and all the toxic waste dumps still building up in the world w/no way to properly dispose of it.maybe huge locations where the animals can roam and the plants as well as animals can be restored to re-create the time periods.suppose it did get out of control or some twistedminds were to turn a pack of allosaurs loose in a residential nieghborhood?my friends there are teen age gang-bangers doing more damage to people and places for fun!at least the dinosaurs would take a break in between feedings right?my point is for the sake of science and learning and wonderous things!even if it costed millions of dollars to have proper safegaurds and proper regulations i feel it would be worth the benifits of better research to give it a good try;even if it had to be shut down later i believe there are incredible hidden things to learn here---KENNEY

Sometimes I think that dinosaur enthusiasts, like me, are like storm chasers.

Storm chasers like weather and the bigger and badder the weather the better. Weather often involves getting wet and maybe soaked, frozen, and bonked on the head by hail and stuff like that. Storm chasers are willing to travel to remote and out of the way places to find their storms. Storm chasers arm themselves with the latest data and technology to be ready and up to date to for the next weather event. Storm chasers want to find storms and exciting weather events but do not want to become a victim who is killed by encountering a real storm. Storm chasers want to find storms but do want to create and bring living storms to a town near you.

Now if you put dinosaur hunters in place of Storm chasers you would say:

dinosaur hunters like dinosaurs and the bigger and badder the dinosaur the better. Dinosaur hunting often involves getting dirty and maybe soaked, frozen, and bonked on the head by hail and stuff like that. Dinosaur hunters are willing to travel to remote and out of the way places to find their dinosaurs. Dinosaur hunters arm themselves with the latest data and technology to be ready and up to date to for the next dinosaur event. Dinosaur hunters want to find dinosaurs and exciting dinosaur events but do not want to become a victim who is killed by encountering a real dinosaur. Dinosaur hunters want to find dinosaurs but do want to create and bring living dinosaurs to a town near you.

Though it would be amazing and a true out of this world experience to see a real roaring, havoc reeking, rampaging, teeth dripping with blood dinosaur in the flesh I'm afraid I will settle for a visit to the museum, fossil quarry, dinosaur website, great dinosaur book or a good old fashion chat with another dinosaur nut like myself to experience my dinosaurs.

Which is what I am doing right now. How about you?

i have wanted to genetically create a dinosaur my whole life. ive come up with a few ways in which i think it would be possible ie which animals i would use for the basis of my creation but nothing seems quite right. it would take extensive amounts of time to figure out how to clone a dinosaur because we cannot calculate their behavior exactly; therefore, it would not be a dinosaur. and any dinosaur i create has to be authentic

landbeforetime1241 said

i have wanted to genetically create a dinosaur my whole life. ive come up with a few ways in which i think it would be possible ie which animals i would use for the basis of my creation but nothing seems quite right. it would take extensive amounts of time to figure out how to clone a dinosaur because we cannot calculate their behavior exactly; therefore, it would not be a dinosaur. and any dinosaur i create has to be authentic

Welcome landbeforetime1241! Reading your post I was wondering if you were thinking of inter breeding different kinds of current day creatures? or if you were looking for some way of 'recovering' DNA from an extinct species and culturing it somehow to produce something considered extinct? How would you authentic your 'creation'? Its a big subject and nobody's claimed to be able to do it. It would be a massive leap if it were accomplished. Just interested in your ideas…

I say we clone a varitety of dinos and let them loose in huge conservationist lands, as well as saber-tooth cats, dire-wolves, mammoths and the like, and use them as giant hunting grounds. Human beings are savage in nature...so instead of killing each other maybe we can become a society that expresses its urge to kill in the hunt instead of in war? Just a playfull thought...

leroy gallagher said

I say we clone a varitety of dinos and let them loose in huge conservationist lands, as well as saber-tooth cats, dire-wolves, mammoths and the like, and use them as giant hunting grounds. Human beings are savage in nature…so instead of killing each other maybe we can become a society that expresses its urge to kill in the hunt instead of in war? Just a playfull thought…

Quite gruesome concept but I'll bet there are many hunters who would jump at the chance.

You might have something if the number of creatures starts to grow too fast to control the 'herd' needs thinning.

Where did natural selection suddenly go?

if we can yield the power of genetic cloning, would dinosaurs be the first and last stop? how about cloning ourselves? the power (power being a word of possession and greed) of cloning if not done in a better world could prove, disastrous, no? although i am in love with the idea of cloning dinosaurs, and wouldn't mind completing life with contributions to the science, i must ask, are we ready for that type of possession? ha ha what am i saying, yes we are! ha ha i just wanna see a Dino!

I am thinking that the first Jurassic Park movie may have gotten it right.

We are very ambitious to exercise the power but once able are we really prepared to deal with and be dominant over the unleashing of that power. In the movie the dinosaurs got out and reeked havoc upon everything in their path and in real life how prepared are we to domesticate a dinosaurian creation or live with the uncontrollable creation of hungry beasts.

The ferocious meat eaters could reduce an exploding earth population quickly while at the same time the big herbivores would be reducing the forests to toothpicks and I suppose either would be super contributors to greenhouse gasses. Some might think one of these is a good idea while being horrified at the thought of the other two! (Sorry …editorial comment)

Even so, Like mesozoicrising, I would like to see a real dinosaur in the flesh too  …and don't tell me to go look at modern birds - that's not what I mean! I would like to be able to watch and observe from some safe spot and not by quick backward glances as I flee in terror, watching to see if those sharp teeth are gaining on me!

We are most likely getting close to things like this. Did you read about the artificial windpipe implant - new windpipe grown from t cells.
Windpipe, Grown From Stem Cells, Implanted In Man : NPR

you also have to think, could large sauropods live today? with oxygen's levels alot lower than the mesozoic era, i don't know if they could survive that big, also, as brilliant as Jurassic park is, ask yourself, would trex really run around snapping at everything? that is to say, would trex get free if there wasn't a greedy retard like Dennis nedry there to shut down everything to steal embryos for money? its all very questionable, its all very interesting, and all the points made so far are very plausible, like Ian Malcolm said, life will fond a way.

look around us, life always finds a way. in that u must realize also, how delicate the balance of life is. man has been alive 1% of 1% of earths existence, and 95% of all species of animals to ever exists are extinct, whose to say we aren't next, life is a game of chance, a global killing meteor hasn't hit earth recently because the solar system is just about set in its motion, but whose to say one of the meteors aren't gunna crash into each other an deflect towards earth. im a little off subject,  but my point is, dinosaurs are an amazing part of history, for them to be reborn, genetically or naturally, i believe they will be an untamable force, maybe not at first, but eventually the wild always wins. BUT im still all for cloning them haha

yes i know, i rambled a little bit, sorry about that

oh and that article about the wind pipe, now thats impressive. its almost like we are creating the 24th chromosome, also its almost a matter of time before cancer is beaten, heck we dont even have a cure for the common cold, BUT the answer is out there. i cant wait until someone finds it

I don't think it we should clone prehistoric creatures. Don't get me wrong, I would love to hold a Diictodon or watch a herd of Parasaurolophus run across a field but if we do, where does it stop? Assuming we survive the Raptors and various other Therapods, do we accelerate evolution next? I watched a documentary on this topic and they said if they can successfully clone a dinosaur from a chicken embryo, they will look into fast forwarding evolution. They could accidentily make a firebreating chicken that can teleport (although that would be awesome…). If anyone has watched Primeval they would know what the future looks like when experiments are done to create new creatures (if you haven't, it's not good). However, I wouldn't mind a Coelurosauravus as a pet though…

DracorexHogwartsia said

…I wouldn't mind a Coelurosauravus as a pet though…

   Your own Primeval Homing Falcon!