http://www.science20.com/news_articles/lazarus_project_recreates_extinct_australian_frog-106610 Very interesting. This is why it's very important for there to be preserved samples of various organisms' DNA, especially threatened/endangered species.
Fuck it. Species go extinct for a reason. When they don't serve a purpose and fit into the ecosystem: PING! Bye-bye. Bringing them back only means you need to prop them up at the cost of successful species. It is the welfare of the animal kingdom.
It's also the premise of Jurassic Park. Maybe science should, just for once, say to itself, "Okay, we can, but... y'know, just for the novelty of it, let's not."
It would be reckless to recreate an extinct species and then release it into the wild. That might have big unforseen consequences. But resurrecting a species to study it? Sure, why not?
Although, it could be a boon. Apatasauruses would be a godsend in the meat industry. No mad cow, no e-coli, and they're fucking huge.
A few years ago, I went to the Sydney Aquarium in Sydney, Australia and they had a small exhibit that explained why things often taste like chicken. It said there were basically two kinds of muscle tissue: red, which is associated with slow, heavy-lifting; and white, which is associated with fast, repetitive motion. Every animal's muscle tissue is essentially the same stuff, so those with a lot of white muscle tissue tend to taste like...chicken.
WOHHHH! Hold your ... horse sonnies! Bingo. Bullseye! True. Literally TONS of meat from even a SMALL sauropod. Tad is my guess. Probably more like beef & pork. Interesting. Probably more like a mixture of pork, beef, & poultry.
One aspect of Diacanu's post, were that to ever happen, there would be brontosaurus burgers for real!
How efficient are they at converting feed to muscle tissue is the only question the meat industry cares about. On the one hand, chickens, more closely related, are more efficient than cows, but cows are more similar in size, and chickens have had 150 million years to become better at that conversion.
Maybe brontosaurus burgers' & ribs' (the meat really/anyway) taste/flavour would be 45% pork, 45% beef, and 10% poultry, based on what's known.
Umm we are in the middle (or beginning) of a mass-extinction event. Humans are responsible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
And it's like politicians who suddenly change their position on gay rights because their kid comes out. There'll be some rare species of tree frog whose venom is the only cure for some gazillionaire "Let 'em all die!" type's cancer. Stop the bulldozers; let's go hug a tree.
You say 'species go extinct for a reason', I was just pointing out that species are going extinct for a different reason
Unless you recreate a sufficient number of them for the gene pool to be self-sustaining, they won't last.
T-Rexes probably DID have feathers, at least to some degree, & maybe alot when young(er). But being large animals, adults, sans ones or species living in cold climates, probably were mostly featherless as adults like elephants, rhinos, etc et al are hairless in the present world. And thinking of them as & calling them (& most if not ALL dinosaurs) reptiles is probably if not definitely a huge misnomer. The basic gist of what you quote-posted applies to far more than just T-Rexes, but to most if not all dinosaurs, from the tiniest compsognathus to the largest sauropod ever found. Size matters not. Physiology, metabolism, classification in the animal kingdom, etc et al. The history of the Mesozoic, life in general, both long before then & up to right now, is extremely interesting. I suggest Dr. Robert Bakker's "The Dinosaur Heresies" (1986), a very interesting & good informative book. I hope there would be sufficient containment procedures IRL to contain cloned extinct organisms so they don't "pollute" present ecosystems. There's nothing wrong with cloning extinct organisms to study & put on display in containment in zoos, aquariums, & domed safaris.
