Re:Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destructi...
by samatman on Friday September 11, 2020 @06:29PM
(#24448000)
In a zoo, we take an animal out of the wild, and keep it alive. Ideally breeding them as well.
In my suggestion, we tranquilize an animal, take a blood sample, and extract marrow from the hip. We then perform a full genome sequence on the blood, and freeze the marrow down, with compounds which vitrify the cells such that they can be revived at any point in the future.
We should do both. But the latter has advantages: the animal stays in the wild, it scales better, and the only ongoing input is a bit of energy to keep the cells cold.
We don't have the technology to print a whole genome from a file, but I expect we will. Stem cell cloning is well understood, and will only get better.
Doing this to as many individuals as possible will preserve genetic diversity. It's insurance, basically.
In my suggestion, we tranquilize an animal, take a blood sample, and extract marrow from the hip. We then perform a full genome sequence on the blood, and freeze the marrow down, with compounds which vitrify the cells such that they can be revived at any point in the future.
We should do both. But the latter has advantages: the animal stays in the wild, it scales better, and the only ongoing input is a bit of energy to keep the cells cold.
We don't have the technology to print a whole genome from a file, but I expect we will. Stem cell cloning is well understood, and will only get better.
Doing this to as many individuals as possible will preserve genetic diversity. It's insurance, basically.