Shaylin Rose
Jounal 3
De- extinction
A gmo (genetically modified organism) is a scientific process that is now being thought
of where we could bring extinct animals back to life. To see animals that walked the earth up to
200,000 years ago could one day walk on the earth again. The only animals that are too old to
bring back are dinosaurs they are known as totally extinct, both bodily and genetically, but I’m
okay with not seeing them around ever.
This process goes by getting a genome from the extinct animal and collect a complete
sequence and connecting DNA from museum specimens. Then get a complete DNA from a
relative that still exist that is most similar to the extinct animal. Then combine the DNA and
synthesize and identify specific mutations that was dominant to the extinct animal. The DNA is
converted into the existing animal as stem cells and then converted again into germ cells and
inserted into existing animal eggs. After the eggs hatch the two outcomes will mate again and
have a complete domain gene of the extinct animal. And soon enough the world will be filled
once again with animals that use to be.
Some pro’s of this de extinction experiment is that it would be interesting to study the
animals that we use to know nothing about. To observe animals that lived so long ago would be a
new change for scientists. A major thing would be to find what makes them different from their
existing relatives. Also to study why there relatives didn’t die out but they did.
Cons of this whole experiment would be the cost that all of the research and tools would
be. Time that would be taken up on this project when the time could be spend on better
experiments to help improve human life instead. This is no simple few weeks experiment; to reexist these animals will take time; years and maybe even decades. There is also the fact that it
won’t always succeed. It has been said that; It was once men who took these animals off our
earth so there is no point to bring them back on.
My personal opinion is that I think it would be cool to see animals that no longer exist. I
would love to go to the zoo and see a Woolly mammoth, a passenger pigeon, ivory-billed
woodpeckers, Carolina parakeets, great auks, Labrador ducks, and dodoes. To recreate an animal
that lived so long ago, with not much research or observation on would be incredible to study
now presently will all the great observation machines that are used. The GMO project can also
be helpful to the endangered animals by re populating them. I feel that this could really help our
animal life grow. We are losing more and more animals every day and more species are become
endangered and on the verge of being extinct, it would be cool for once instead of men killing
animals and taking them off this earth, that men begin to put more animals on this earth.
Works Cited
Brand, Stewart. "Opinion: The Case for Reviving Extinct Species." National Geographic. National
Geographic Society, 11 Mar. 2013. Web. 17 Apr. 2013.