Dna Extraction From Fossil Eggs

[Wakaritai]

The BBC news story

The article didn't mention how long they might be able to go back, but you might be able to get further info from the related links.

[Auspex]

Cool! Wonder if they'd make good pets?

Let's take up a collection; I'll donate the shell:

[Wakaritai]

That's what I was thinking!

They were talking about analyzing the DNA they extracted to compare it to other species and whatnot... screw that. If they clone me one I'll give them all the DNA they could want

[Nicholas]

Clone Dino.. hrmm.. I like it.

[pleecan]

Is that ever neat article... the potential of DNA amplification can be done via PCR... the potential is there to find fragments of DNA... the question becomes is there enough material to generate a complete animal...not likely... then there is the ethics question whether one should pursue such a venture... personally no. Let dead thing remain dead.

PL

[Guy Heaton]

Is that ever neat article... the potential of DNA amplification can be done via PCR... the potential is there to find fragments of DNA... the question becomes is there enough material to generate a complete animal...not likely... then there is the ethics question whether one should pursue such a venture... personally no. Let dead thing remain dead.

PL

I completely agree. Once an animal is extinct thats the way it should stay. I always feel sad visiting zoos for a similar reason. Its so tragic that some animals and one day perhaps all animals in zoos no longer exist in their natural habitat. Im all for conservation and I think that its better that species of animal still exist in some way, but I just think its sad how zoos are becoming like living museums. Its like an artificial representation of how proud and beautiful animals would have lived in their natural habitat. Or maybe Im just rambling and getting completely off the subject. I have a habit of doing that. Sorry!!!

[TygerTyger]

The ghost of Jurassic Park just won't go away!

[Seldom]

I completely agree. Once an animal is extinct thats the way it should stay. I always feel sad visiting zoos for a similar reason. Its so tragic that some animals and one day perhaps all animals in zoos no longer exist in their natural habitat. Im all for conservation and I think that its better that species of animal still exist in some way, but I just think its sad how zoos are becoming like living museums. Its like an artificial representation of how proud and beautiful animals would have lived in their natural habitat. Or maybe Im just rambling and getting completely off the subject. I have a habit of doing that. Sorry!!!

I have to agree 100% Guy. Zoo's in my opinion are sad places. Extinction is part of the cycle and best left alone. I would love to have a mammoth in the back yard but not sure it's the right thing to do.

[Auspex]

...I would love to have a mammoth in the back yard but not sure it's the right thing to do.

Might be a good idea to run it by the neighbors first...

[Wakaritai]

If something went extinct recently, or possibly due to human influence, I see no problem at all. Those animals carved out their niche, and it would probably take many thousands of years before a re-introduction would cause any issues.

Bringing back dinos, could certainly cause problems. But in a controlled environment, there would also be no issues at all.

The key point obviously being "control." But for large things, it should be simple, though thoroughly researched before hand.

And that is just from an ecological standpoint.

Working with limited bits of rare DNA yields science, sure... but if we manage to get enough of a strand to bring back something from the past, especially something very different from what lives today, it would have the potential to increase scientific knowledge in many areas incredibly. Simply saying "well, too bad, the lost, it's our turn" doesn't cut it with me. Ohh, well. To each his own. But I think it's safe to say all points are moot because it won't happen anyway. ( :'( )

[jonnyquest]

I'd like to see an animal brought back instead of some 25 million year old bee bacteria found in amber.

[usaman65]

I'd donate Cretaceous amber with inclusions to any group willing to extract any organic compounds from it.

Kevin Chomicki

[Smaug]

I agree with Wakaritai about possibly bringing back creatures extinct because of human influence.

I just would like to comment that if we are goping to do such a thing, we schould not only look at the cuddly mammals and birds but (if possible) schould also look at the other vertebrates and possibly non vertebrate creatures (even plants!). Restore the whole ecosystem and not just the teddybears...

[pleecan]

It is my own personal opinion and no one elses.... speaking as a person who formerly worked 20yrs ago in the fields of molecular biology / virology... gene manipulation /cloning that there are areas in science that one should not delve into .... due to ethics consideration... When men become God Like with the power to create new life in a test tube .... As Technology increases with out the constraint of ethics... so is the countdown clock to Man rapid descent into total destruction.... as end time approaches....

[Smaug]

I know it is a personal opinion, i respect that. But:

Pesticides, controlling nature, taming nature destroying life like we now do ... ethics already shoveled neatly under the carpet ... who cares if the bluefintuna dies out, as long as we can make profits out of those dead bodies ... we are god like, vengeful gods ... As Technology increases with out the constraint of ethics... so is the countdown clock to Man rapid descent into total destruction.... as end time approaches...

You can always interchange creating life with destroying life and we are already destroying a lot...

[Frank Menser]

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..Scientists tease DNA from eggshell of extinct birds

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Facebook Twitter Delicious Digg Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks .Print .. AFP/File – A man holds an egg from an extinct elephant bird. In a world first, scientists in Australia announced … .by Richard Ingham Richard Ingham – Tue Mar 9, 7:10 pm ET

PARIS (AFP) – In a world first, scientists in Australia announced on Wednesday they had extracted DNA from the fossilised eggshells of extinct birds, including iconic giants such as the moa and elephant bird.

The achievement marks a major step towards drafting the genome of birds wiped out by human greed, although the scientists warn this does not mean an extinct species should -- or even can -- be resurrected in the style of Jurassic Park.

The team, led by Michael Bunce of Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, say they isolated DNA from desiccated inner membranes in fossil eggshells, found in 13 locations in Australia, Madagascar and New Zealand.

Ancient genetic material was coaxed from the eggshell of the moa (Dinornis), a flightless cousin to the ostrich that reached up to four metres (13 feet) in height and was hunted to extinction by New Zealand's Maori by the late 18th century.

DNA was also extracted from the elephant bird (Aepyornis), like the moa and ostrich a species of ratite, said the study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Growing up to three metres (10 feet) high, the bird was wiped out by European colonisation of Madagascar by 1700.

Other successes were reported using eggshells from an Australian owl and a New Zealand duck of unknown date. The oldest egg sample was from an emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), some 19,000 years old.

But the team were unable to get DNA from far older samples in Australia, estimated at 50,000 years old, from an extinct megafaunal bird called Genyornis.

The technique entails reducing the shell to powder, extracting the DNA with lab chemicals and then amplifying it using polymerase chain reaction, or PCR -- a standard tool used by forensic scientists, for instance, in getting the famous "genetic fingerprint."

Bunce said the team extracted in each case only a tiny amount of DNA -- just 250 base pairs, the "rungs" on the ladder-like genetic code, and this is less than a fraction of one percent of the bird's genome.

"The point was proof of principle, to show that it can be done," he said in a phone interview with AFP.

"We didn't go out to get very long pieces of DNA. That's obviously the next step."

Bunce said the exploit would give palaeontologists a new window into creatures of the past.

Until now, DNA has been teased from bones -- for instance, providing most of the genome of the Neanderthal, our enigmatic extinct cousins -- and also from preserved hair.

Eggshells, overlooked as potential source material, turn out to be astonishingly robust at protecting DNA.

They are a tough biomineral matrix of calcium carbonate and are less prone than bones to infiltration by bacteria, which contaminates samples.

And they are also plentiful. Archaeological sites have yielded harvests of eggs plundered from nests by early humans, eager to keep a store of protein at hand.

It could be possible to go back further than fossilised eggs that are older than 19,000 years, if the shells come from a permanently cold environment, the scientists hope. But eggs that are completely "mineralised" -- in other words, like rock -- over hundreds of thousands of years are not a likely option.

Could the moa, the elephant bird or the dodo, which was hunted to oblivion for food and hat feathers, ever walk again?

"We can reassemble the genome to get an idea of what an extinct species looked like. But (resurrecting it) is still in the realm of science fiction. It's completely hypothetical, and frankly not a debate I really want to have," said Bunce.

So far, scientists have only been able to synthesise a tiny strand of DNA, creating around 200 artificial base pairs, he said. The human genome, by comparison, amounts to around three billion base pairs.

"Some researchers have inserted certain genes into living species... (but) this does not bring an extinct species to life," co-researcher Charlotte Oskam pointed out.

"We think, like the mammoth, that it will be possible to do extinct genomes using fossil eggshell but it is a huge leap to imagining we can clone an extinct species. Personally I think it is unethical to recreate a species that is extinct."

EDIT: Merged for continuity

[Wakaritai]

:'(

I could have gone without reading that... lol

that was a total buzz kill. In the BBC article it said they got back DNA molecules, not just very tiny portions of molecules

ohh, well... one day...

[bobthemoose]

I completely agree. Once an animal is extinct thats the way it should stay.

i'm hungry.

that burger looks nice and juicy.

oh it would probably be great to see what that burger tastes like.

ive never seen a burger like that before. piled high with bacon and all the fixins

but since i'm hungry i think i'll just stay that way.

???

i quite simply cant understand why you would suggest a species should stay extinct if we had the ability to bring them back. i can see perfectly zero logic in that argument.