Could Extinct Species Make a Comeback?

(CBS)  It's difficult to imagine that 10,000 years ago, right here in North America, there lived giant animals that are now the stuff of legends - mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths and sabretooth cats. They, and thousands of other species, have vanished from the Earth. And today, partly due to the expansion of one species - ours - animals are going extinct faster than ever before.

The very definition of extinct means gone forever, but what if we could change that? Scientists are making remarkable advances that are bringing us closer than ever before to the possibility of a true animal resurrection.

Who wouldn't be dazzled by an animal like the woolly mammoth, or the sabretooth tiger, the Irish elk or the giant sloth? Today they exist just as bones in museums, alive only in our imaginations and the recreations of artists and filmmakers. But what if that could change?

Web Extra: Frozen Zoo
Web Extra: The Tasmanian Tiger
Audubon Nature Institute
Sean Carroll
Smithsonian: Museum of Natural History
National Geographic Channel
Waking The Baby Mammoth


In the age of DNA, we now know that these vanished creatures, like all life on Earth, are ultimately nothing more than sequences of the four letters - A, C, T, and G - that make up the genetic blueprint or code of life. The codes for extinct animals were thought to have died along with them, until recently, when machines like one at the Smithsonian's DNA lab started working magic.

"Just the study of ancient DNA only broke onto the scene 20 years ago or so. The idea that we could harvest DNA from extinct creatures, from fossil bones, learn something about the past," Sean Carroll, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin, told 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl.

Carroll says that like so many things in the field of DNA, the progress has been staggering.

One surprising discovery has been the value of ancient hair. Scientists recently discovered that the hair shaft seals DNA inside it like a biological plastic, protecting it, and making hair a rich and plentiful source of genetic information.

"Does that mean that you can take extinct animals, I mean, there's hair in museums? …And get the genetic sequencing?" Stahl asked.

"Possibly, and especially if those animals were preserved in any way, there's a good prospect of that. It's sort of like CSI, you know? How good is this forensic material? Can you get good DNA information from older and older and older material? That's pretty promising," Carroll replied.

So dusty old specimens that have been tucked away in the drawers of natural history museums like the Smithsonian are suddenly potential treasure troves of genetic information: just last year, using only a few clumps of wooly mammoth hair, scientists at Penn State were able to extract enough DNA fragments to figure out most of its genetic sequence, making the woolly mammoth the first extinct animal to have its genome decoded.

Which raises the question of whether resurrecting one of these creatures is really possible.

Scientists say one option would be genetic engineering: take a living animal that's related to the mammoth, like the elephant, figure out all the places where its DNA differs from the mammoth's, and then alter the elephant's DNA to make it match.

That's not possible just yet, but there may be another way: cloning.

"Is it possible that we're gonna get the full DNA of the woolly mammoth and be able to clone it?" Stahl asked.

"Yes, I think we'll be able to get much, if not all, of the woolly mammoth DNA. And the great advantage there is that a lot of the specimens are in permafrost. So they're sorta been conveniently frozen for us, which preserves DNA, preserves tissue better," Carroll said.

But for cloning, just knowing the DNA sequence from hair isn't enough. You'd need an intact mammoth cell, which Carroll says will be difficult to find, but not impossible.

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[hezdog]

we should only clone extinct species that went extinct due to mankind

[hells_partsman]

I don't know why people try to save natures trash. Natural selection dictates what species live and which die. But for some odd reason society feels the need to embrace the defects. If your really scraping the bottom of the barrel for research projects here is one; find the balance of the human race to the ratios of the rest of the species on the planet. The next would be how to effectively control the population of humans on the planet.

[dragon8me]

What if we faced an ELE, Extenction Level Event, like a killer asteroid? We already have seeds stored in a vault in the artic in case something like that happens. Some day it will. All suns die. We are on the verge of finding livable planets. It would be cheaper to seed a planet sending dna and using artificial woumbs than sending live animals and plants. But like all technology. It can be used for good or bad. the choice is ours. History tells us that if something can be done it will be done. Mistakes will be made but in the end we don't stand for things that are bad and even if they are done people won't stand for it for long. I don't see reviving hundrreds of mammoths but a few would be a good thing. Much could be learned and because of what we learn from them we will discover other things that affect us all. Look at space science, we wouldn't have many of the things we have now if not for space research.

[newsterl]

"Who wouldn't be dazzled by an animal like the woolly mammoth, or the sabretooth tiger, the Irish elk or the giant sloth? "

Just one itsy bitsy problem, the vast North American Serengetti wilderness that was once home to all of these and the vast plains full of bison are long GONE, replaced by shopping malls, housing tracts, cities, towns, bridges, roads, people and pollution.
We cant even find suitable sustainable habitat for what we HAVE LEFT, let along find a place for wooley mammoths and sabre tooth tigers!

"We're going to lose a lot of species if we don't do somethin' about it."

The "somthin" is human BIRTH CONTROL, ONE child per couple, reductions back to pre 1900 levels

[Indy_64]

Wow! What an incredible story! Thank you 60 minutes, thank you Audubon Institute. I wish you God's speed in your research. If gov't funding is used, thank you to whoever approved funding for using my tax dollars in such a meaningful way. For those who disapprove of such research, I wish each of our tax dollars could be used to fully support our separate views. The result would probably be the same though...some dollars going to one project, some dollars going to another. Please continue bringing us such interesting stories on scientific research.

[mrjustice1]

SO?
YOU REALLY WANT TO ACT WITH GENUINE PROBITY AND WITH GENUINE MORALITY?

OK. Give it to me, baby. Give it to me NOW!

er, well, wait a sec, darling.

What is meant by that is:

Give me your answer.

Are you willing to 'extinct' yourself and perhaps MOST other wasteful humanpigs for the genuine, highly-moral benefit of the flora and fauna that WE, YOU, AND MOST humans have wiped out in various ways - some unintentionally, and some INTENTIONALLY?

Will you cease and desist of your plastic use, and will you cease and desist of your hydrocarbon and your ecology destroying car use, air conditioner, and other state of the art creature comfarts in which you currently engage?

And make sure you give up your cell phone that is responsible for disorienting and killing the world's pollinators which are essential for agricultural/plant/food growth. YOU continue to be so selfish, that you don't even give a rat's ass for our bees!

[erasmus111]

I don't use a cell phone. I use glass when possible. I drive very little. And I only use the air conditioner if I'm dying. : )

[erasmus111]

by Void_Master January 11, 2010 7:57 PM EST
I'm not about to ease up. That's why we have other planets.


So what you are saying is that you think that we should be able to move to another planet after destroying this one? And destroy it too?

[erasmus111]

Yeah, just what we need....monstrous animals roaming the earth again. Someone needs to give their head a shake.

It's one thing to bring back a particular tiger or bird, but quite another to bring back a dinosaur!

[BrianWX328m]

Monstrous animals ALREADY roam the earth today:
Bin Laden, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore......

[erasmus111]

And YOU!

[jxknowles]

It's interesting technology with future uses we have not imagined yet. But as many have voiced already, we need to keep better stock of what we already have before us.

[elliesamericana]

To do this is our moral obligation. We need to start preserving the planet and bring back these many species we have driven to extinction.

[rational_1]

Suppose we find a frozen Neanderthal? Should we bring them back too out of a moral obligation? Just wondering how far we'd be willing to go with this.

[elliesamericana]

Possibly. We have done a great job of making the world go wrong. It is very easy to destroy, which is just what most of our species does. It is very hard to put what is broken back together properly.

[hankvreeland]

Why in the world would anyone want to bring back extinct species? So what if it makes you feel warm, wet and sticky, thats not a reason.