Monday, May 19, 2008

Today, Tasmanian Tigers, Tomorrow Velociraptors?

Just came across this article from Hot Air (note: Yeah, I know its my favorite political site).

(The Guardian) In a breakthrough Jurassic Park-like experiment, scientists have resurrected genes from the Tasmanian tiger - a meat-eating marsupial that became extinct more than 70 years ago - by injecting them into mouse embryos. [...]

Researchers at the University of Melbourne and Texas University in Houston extracted DNA from four 100-year-old museum specimens, including three preserved in alcohol, the journal PLjoS One reported. They isolated a string of genes from each and injected it into early-stage mouse embryos. Tests on the growing mice revealed that a gene from the Tasmanian tiger called Col2a1 had switched on and was driving the growth of bone and cartilage in the young animals.


I wonder what scientists will think of next?



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