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A Cloned Ferret Has Given Birth for the First Time in History, Marking a Win for Her Endangered Species (www.smithsonianmag.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Antonia, a cloned black-footed ferret at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, has produced two healthy offspring that will help build genetic diversity in their recovering population

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That’s pretty cool. I can’t wait to see Tassie Tigers come back thanks to this kinda tech.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Tasmanian tigers?

I'd love to seem them come back as well, but keep in mind that it's much harder with an extinct species. I'm not sure which animal we could use as a host womb. Also, I suspect the tiger went extinct long enough ago that no live tissue samples exist - which makes it much harder to come up with a viable cell. (I think the current idea is to find the closet living relative genetically, and use CRISPR or something similar to rewrite the the bits that are different, and repeat until you have a living cell with identical DNA to the source).

I'm optimistic that these problems will eventually be solved, but there's still a ways to go here.

[–] ilovededyoupiggy 2 points 2 weeks ago

So that's it? All that money building the ferret cloning machine and then after it spits out the first one you're just gonna let them go back to making babies the normal way?