Animals that Scientists Want to Bring Back from Extinction
Scientists are trying to bring extinct animals back from the dead. It’s called “de-extinction,” the act of bringing an extinct animal back to life by reassembling its genome and injecting it into embryonic cells.
De-extinction, resurrection biology, or species revivalism is the controversial process of creating an organism, which is a member of or resembles an extinct species, or a breeding population of such organisms. Cloning is the most widely proposed method, although selective breeding has also been proposed. Similar techniques have been applied to endangered species.
There is significant controversy over de-extinction, and critics assert that efforts would be better spent conserving existing species, and that the habitat necessary for formerly extinct species to survive is too limited to warrant de-extinction. [via]
This process does however raise a number of ethical and logistical questions, including how scientists can get a usable DNA sample from an extinct animal, and also whether they should.
