Bringing back the Moa?

[n2doc]

FOSSILIZED EGGSHELLS YIELD DNA
These ancient DNA samples could open the door to cloning long-extinct species.

Tue Mar 9, 2010 07:01 PM ET


In a scientific breakthrough that opens a window to now-extinct animals from the prehistoric past, researchers have just successfully recovered DNA from several fossilized eggshells collected from Australia, New Zealand and Madagascar, according to a new study in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

While dinosaur eggs remain a challenge, the scientists have already collected DNA for the largest bird that ever lived -- the elephant bird Aepyornis -- that stood around 10 feet tall and weighed around 880 pounds. Attempts to retrieve DNA from elephant bird bone previously failed, so eggshells may prove to be a more reliable source.

In the future, everything from prehistoric penguin eggshells to those of tiny birds could be mined for DNA, particularly since few research limitations seem to exist.

"We were able to obtain DNA from both thin (duck) and thick (elephant bird) eggshells, which suggests that thickness may not play a significant role in the recovery of DNA from eggshells," lead author Charlotte Oskam told Discovery News.

She and her colleagues obtained DNA from extinct moas and ducks from New Zealand, extinct elephant birds from Madagascar, and an emu and owl from Australia. The oldest eggshell belonged to an emu that lived 19,000 years ago.

http://news.discovery.com/animals/eggshells-fossils-dna.html

[Orrex]

1. Maybe we can resurrect Michael Crichton.

The global warming contrarians have been without a famous spokesperson for far too long.

[kestrel91316]

4. Did he die? Or did he just STFU?

[krispos42]

5. Obama winning the election killed him.

Seriously, he died on November 4th, 2008.

"NBC news is calling the election for Senator Barack Obama."

<thud>

[mike_c]

2. cloning birds is not trivial....

Well, cloning placental mammals isn't either, but at least the embryonic development stage has a "receptive" place to occur. I think the state of the art with birds is injecting stem cells into the developing embryo inside an egg as early as possible, yielding a chimeric individual that's mostly the desired genome, rather than a true clone. That works with eggs of the same species, e.g. to produce birds with desirable characteristics, but it won't work across species.

I doubt that it's technologically impossible-- I can think of one or two ways to begin with something like emu or ostrich eggs as incubators-- but the compatibility issues are tricky and have not been worked out, to my knowledge. I suspect that ultimately there will have to be a variety of genes that will need to be discovered and regulated before something like a moa or elephant bird can be successfully reared on emu yolk or the like.

[Johonny]

3. Isn't the problem with these things

not only do you need the DNA, you need the right environment to turn genes on and off at the right time. It's unclear (at least to me) if any modern birds egg would work.

[gtar100]

6. My God! Haven't these scientists learned anything from Jurassic Park!?!

People are going to be eaten and it isn't going to be pretty.