Technically I think there’s a very good case for doing something simple. Freeze practically any tissue sample, and someone at a later time can extract tiny fragments and extract the DNA using the well-known polymerisation techniques. With multiple cells and tries, you can exactly sequence the entire genome. We probably have the technology already to do this, and end up uploading these species to the Internet. And at some later time we’ll be able to rebuild the sequence, put it into some suitable cells, and fire off a pregnancy.
That’s not the sad part. The sad part is that the pleistocene is gone forever, and that’s where all these animals belong. That kind of Earth is passing away, and is never ever coming back. The arrival of technology is going to affect the Earth as profoundly as the advent of multicellular life. What’s happening now is merely the very very beginning of this change.
You can preserve the rhino if you like, but its habitat has already gone, and the finality of that will become clearer with every passing year.
I agree with you on the sad part. I do enjoy biology, and I am sad to see so many species becoming extinct. I don’t think that the project mentioned in the post is as hopeless as you make it out to be, however. In the future, we won’t particularly be interested in plants and animals to develop drugs; that role will be taken over by rational drug design. The reason why we would want to preserve plants and animals is the same reason modern-day environmentalists take the positions they do: Earth’s biological life is pretty frickin cool. So if we do want to revive these preserved species, it’s not strictly necessary to actually put rhinos back in Africa. As a starting point, we could simply build a few high-quality zoos. Given some substantial advances in technology, simulate them. Allow people to go on a VR safari. Given a lot of technological advances, terraform a planet and use it as a nature preserve. It won’t be possible to revive extinct species anytime soon, but I don’t think it’s a hopeless project at all to prepare for a day when it might be possible.
It won’t be possible to revive extinct species anytime soon, but I don’t think it’s a hopeless project at all to prepare for a day when it might be possible.
That is true of the current intermediate technology level. If we manage to develop sufficiently advanced technology that we no longer need to use the Earth to support ourselves, it could change.
Given environmentalists proposing to turn the whole Earth into a nature reserve, the answer I would like to be able to give is, “Sure, have fun. I’m off to the asteroid belt to find some dead matter to turn into computational substrate. Send me some postcards.”
I find this subject sad, in a way.
Technically I think there’s a very good case for doing something simple. Freeze practically any tissue sample, and someone at a later time can extract tiny fragments and extract the DNA using the well-known polymerisation techniques. With multiple cells and tries, you can exactly sequence the entire genome. We probably have the technology already to do this, and end up uploading these species to the Internet. And at some later time we’ll be able to rebuild the sequence, put it into some suitable cells, and fire off a pregnancy.
That’s not the sad part. The sad part is that the pleistocene is gone forever, and that’s where all these animals belong. That kind of Earth is passing away, and is never ever coming back. The arrival of technology is going to affect the Earth as profoundly as the advent of multicellular life. What’s happening now is merely the very very beginning of this change.
You can preserve the rhino if you like, but its habitat has already gone, and the finality of that will become clearer with every passing year.
I agree with you on the sad part. I do enjoy biology, and I am sad to see so many species becoming extinct. I don’t think that the project mentioned in the post is as hopeless as you make it out to be, however. In the future, we won’t particularly be interested in plants and animals to develop drugs; that role will be taken over by rational drug design. The reason why we would want to preserve plants and animals is the same reason modern-day environmentalists take the positions they do: Earth’s biological life is pretty frickin cool. So if we do want to revive these preserved species, it’s not strictly necessary to actually put rhinos back in Africa. As a starting point, we could simply build a few high-quality zoos. Given some substantial advances in technology, simulate them. Allow people to go on a VR safari. Given a lot of technological advances, terraform a planet and use it as a nature preserve. It won’t be possible to revive extinct species anytime soon, but I don’t think it’s a hopeless project at all to prepare for a day when it might be possible.
Perhaps see: Extinct ibex is resurrected by cloning
It says: “An extinct animal has been brought back to life for the first time after being cloned from frozen tissue.”
It was only alive for seven minutes, but it’s something.
That is true of the current intermediate technology level. If we manage to develop sufficiently advanced technology that we no longer need to use the Earth to support ourselves, it could change.
Given environmentalists proposing to turn the whole Earth into a nature reserve, the answer I would like to be able to give is, “Sure, have fun. I’m off to the asteroid belt to find some dead matter to turn into computational substrate. Send me some postcards.”