Cloning Extinct Species

Talk about scientific and technological developments in the future
Doozer
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Cloning Extinct Species

Post by Doozer »

Ever since this forum got rebooted, I just thought I'd bring up another popular subject in the futurology community. Specifically, the possibility of seeing the resurrection of various extinct species via cloning in our lifetime. Which ones do you think are the most likely to be brought back first? Also when do you think is the most realistic date it could actually happen after scientists promising for years?

Most importantly, which one do you want to see brought back the most? Feedback will be much appreciated. ;)
Nanotechandmorefuture
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Re: Cloning Extinct Species

Post by Nanotechandmorefuture »

Doozer wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 7:10 am Ever since this forum got rebooted, I just thought I'd bring up another popular subject in the futurology community. Specifically, the possibility of seeing the resurrection of various extinct species via cloning in our lifetime. Which ones do you think are the most likely to be brought back first? Also when do you think is the most realistic date it could actually happen after scientists promising for years?

Most importantly, which one do you want to see brought back the most? Feedback will be much appreciated. ;)
Bring em all back! Let's make Jurassic Park a reality as well by the way without the total disasters it ended up as throughout the whole series. Maybe this time it won't go wrong.

Edit: As for the date when this can happen I guess it depends on scientific advances as always.
Tadasuke
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Re: Cloning Extinct Species

Post by Tadasuke »

If you had asked me in 2010, I would tell you that in 2020 there would be zoos with mammoths in them.
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
Cocoonman
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Re: Cloning Extinct Species

Post by Cocoonman »

After Jurassic Park came out, scientists were quick to dismiss the idea of cloning extinct animals as nonsense, repeating the same thing over and over again. Thus, no dinosaurs will ever walk the Earth again, since there is no DNA left behind. Their myopic prediction is based on the results from PCR experiments and spectroscopy. These techniques, however, are highly limited. For example, to amplify DNA by PCR, you need to crack the sample, dissolve it and subject it to cycles of high and low temperature, effectively destroying all original spatial relations between molecules. There need to be chemically intact fragments to which your probes can bind. This raises the question of whether sufficient information is left in fossils, such as tissue trapped in amber, to infer upon the original nucleotide sequences even if the DNA has been broken down and altered beyond the possibility of recognition by an enzyme? To answer that, a hypothetical advanced technologies would be needed, that could characterize a sample at the atomic level, creating a representation of all constituents in a 3-dimensional coordinate grid and using it to perform 'molecular archeology'. Only then the issue will be finally settled.
Vakanai
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Re: Cloning Extinct Species

Post by Vakanai »

I don't think that dinosaurs will ever be brought out of extinction. I'm less skeptical however on the possibility of bringing back mammoths and mastodons, but even that I can only say "50/50 at best" and even then "not soon." But I'm not particularly interested in cloning species that went extinct during the last Ice Age really.

But where I do see promise, and what I do really want to see happen, is cloning species out of extinction of the last few hundred years or so - the ones we caused to become extinct. The dodo bird, the Tasmanian tiger, various species of birds and reptiles and amphibians and mammals that existed until we came along and hunted them and changed their environments and destroyed their habitats. Dinosaurs and mammoths are cool and neat and interesting, but ultimately would only be interesting sideshows at best. There's animals recently extinct that if brought back and reintroduced to the environments they once roamed might have an actual beneficial impact on those environments. And that's honestly where I'd rather see the focus be.

But if it takes bringing back a mammoth to get people interested in this and willing to throw money at it to get it done? Then by all means, clone that mammoth! Whatever it takes to drive that interest and get the momentum rolling.
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funkervogt
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Re: Cloning Extinct Species

Post by funkervogt »

In the distant future, we'll be able to create ancestor simulations of prehistoric animals in their native environments. The simulations will mimic real physics, chemistry, and genetics on a 1:1 basis. Through trial and error, we'll be able to deduce which genetic combinations create extinct animals like dinosaurs, and then we'll be able to synthesize them in the real world in cloning labs.

Re-running an Earth simulation again and again with slight changes to different parameters would result in different species that never existed in real life, and we could also will them into a flesh and blood existence.

Read about Kevin Kelly's "Periodic Table of Life" concept for more detail:
A “periodic table” of existing life forms graphed on a matrix of physical characters would reveal blank white spaces lacking organisms that “could be.” Such “could be” life forms that obey the constraints of matter – because we see the same form in other taxon — include a mammalian snake, a dinosaur mole, a flying spider, or a terrestrial squid. In fact, some of these could still evolve on earth, if we left the current flora and fauna alone long enough. (See Dougal Dixon’s magical “Zoology of the Future” in “After Man”) These speculative creatures are entirely plausible because they are convergent, recycling (but remixing) morphological forms that repeat throughout the biosphere.
https://kk.org/thetechnium/ordained-becomi/
Cocoonman
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Re: Cloning Extinct Species

Post by Cocoonman »

Sure, reverse engineering of the biological basis of species based on the accumulated knowledge of their external appearance, behavior, nutrition, etc., will be one way to pull it off in the future. Given the complete understanding of developmental biology and genetics, in principle a corresponding DNA could be synthesized and any imaginable animal brought to life - real or fictional - if it is compatible with the laws of physics.
weatheriscool
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Re: Cloning Extinct Species

Post by weatheriscool »

Since we were the cause of most of these extinctions in the first place, I think it is morally and ethically the right thing to bring them back and to put aside land and resources for their existence.

We'd have a stronger biosphere
We'd have a stronger food chain
We'd have a healthier planet

I don't see the down side
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funkervogt
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Re: Cloning Extinct Species

Post by funkervogt »

Cocoonman wrote: Fri May 13, 2022 5:40 pm Sure, reverse engineering of the biological basis of species based on the accumulated knowledge of their external appearance, behavior, nutrition, etc., will be one way to pull it off in the future. Given the complete understanding of developmental biology and genetics, in principle a corresponding DNA could be synthesized and any imaginable animal brought to life - real or fictional - if it is compatible with the laws of physics.
That's exactly what I was trying to say.
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citali_
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Re: Cloning Extinct Species

Post by citali_ »

I would like for that to happen. In particular, I could definitely see the cloning of extinct aquatic animals. Then it would be more exciting to visit any public aquariums.
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