This futuristic plan is now made possible by a multi-billion dollar company that deciphered the entire genome of the Dodo.
At present, technology has advanced to unsuspected levels. Things that were once thought impossible or just something out of fiction are now closer than ever. Maybe we still have a little to go before we can have flying cars or get teleportation. However, now we may be closer to experiencing something at the level of Jurassic Park.
There have been a lot of memes out there about this movie being a great lesson in how extinct things should be allowed to stay that way. Even so, let’s think that these scenarios remain fiction. It is in this way that science is determined to cross borders in order to discover the secrets of the past.
The company’s futuristic plan has recently been revealed Colossal Bioscienceswhich claims to be close to reviving the Dodo, an extinct bird in the 17th century.
Is strategy it is thanks to the fact that the company, which is based in Dallas, has completely deciphered the bird’s genome, according to its press release.
This bird is the last member of the collection of extinct animals that your scientists want to bring back. The startup has previously stated that it plans to recreate the Tasmanian wolf and the woolly mammoth.
Even so, there is still a long way to go to be able to recover these birds. Despite endless attempts, science cannot create life from scratch, so a way must be found to put the Dodo’s genes into the embryo of a living animal.
It may sound like a simple task, but it’s actually a colossal feat. The next step in the research would be to compare that information with that of other birds such as the Nicobar pigeon and the Rodrigues solitaire, an extinct flightless giant pigeon, to discover the mutations that “turn a Dodo into a Dodo,” he told CNN Beth Shapiro, the project’s lead geneticist, reports Science Alert.
Shapiro comments that the final phase of the plan it would be to reintroduce the Dodo in Mauritius, where they lived before they were exterminated.
The plan is “very, very challenging,” Ewan Birney, deputy director of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory who is not involved in the project, told The Guardian.
The company has raised about $150 million for this project, which is set to cost $225 million from 2021. According to Bloomberg, the latest investment values the start-up at $1.5 billion, says Science Alert.
So far, several questions have been asked about the ethics of the project, since it is technically about reviving an extinct animal and releasing it into the wild.
“There are people who think that because you can do something you should do it, but I’m not sure what the purpose is, and if this is really the best allocation of resources,” Birney told The Guardian.
“We should save the species we have before they go extinct.”
Colossal Biosciences claims that bringing these animals back is not its only goal, Science Alert reports.
“Clearly we are in the middle of an extinction crisis. And it’s our responsibility to bring stories and move people in a way that motivates them to think about the extinction crisis that’s happening right now,” Shapiro told CNN.
“I particularly look forward to promoting bird-focused genetic rescue tools and bird conservation,” he said.