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Jurassic Park for real?

I doubt there can be anyone left alive on the face of the planet who hasn't seen the movie Jurassic Park.

The premise if this movie, for those who have forgotten, is that scientists extract the DNA of extinct species and use it to recreate those long-dead creatures.

Just a few short decades ago this would have been too far-fetched to even consider. Today however, we are very much aware that there is a growing possibility that someone might just pull off this impressive feat.

And, if the stories on today's science wires are to be believed, one group of ambitious scientists might be about to bring the woolly mammoth back from the dead.

In this BBC story it is reported that scientists from Russia and Japan are optimistic that they can turn science-fiction into real-world fact.

Apparently, this won't be the first such resurrection since, as mentioned in the above story, a story in the National Geographic from 2009 reported that cloning had managed to create an Pyrenean ibex, a species which had already been declared extinct for almost a decade at the time.

Unfortunately, that cloned creature didn't live long at all -- perhaps an indication that although we can "in theory" perform such acts of magic, the process is far from reliable.

In the case of the ibex, the DNA used was relatively fresh, yet the cloned creature still died soon after birth. The chances of successfully cloning a mammoth from DNA which is at least 10,000 years old are incredibly slim.

One must wonder however, what the implications of a successful cloning in this case would be.

If we were able to prove that bringing extinct species back to life is possible and practical, might we be tempted to relax our attempts to avoid the extinction of endangered species?

If an animal were facing extinction, might we simply decide to extract DNA from a remaining example of the species and store that away for later use -- while allowing the last remaining living examples to simply die out?

Perhaps we'd see a massive programme to collect and preserve the DNA of all existing species with a view to ensuring that we can revive those species at a later date if we choose to - kind of a virtual DNA zoo.

Of course there are still many, many problems that would be faced if we were to try and restore a previously extinct species...

For a start, cloned animals usually have a much reduced life-span which, it is believed, is due to the telemere damage that the donor cells have already suffered prior to cloning.

Then there is the problem of limited genetic diversity. Even if two animals could be cloned, they would share the same DNA and therefore breeding them would likely result in much massive "inbreeding" and a reduced viability of the offspring.

The bottom line must also be "why?"

If the answer is "because we can" - then perhaps we ought to be spending our time, money and resources on something a little more practical.

What do readers think? Just what would we gain from reviving a long-extinct species or a single example thereof?

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