8/18/2023 0 Comments Dodo bird clone![]() We need basically all of it to land on a specific species. I'm struck here by the comparison between human and chimp or bonobo DNA (edit: the comparison is that we share something like 98% of our DNA with those species). I don't know that philosophy needs to enter the picture given that the process itself (as I understand it) can't (intentionally) produce an animal that could reasonably have been the offspring of any of the dodos that more recently lived. I mean, it would seem like it is not, even with a fairly generous definition. It would be difficult to make a convincing argument that we know enough about the dodo to assert the behaviors of the new animal aren't just coming from whatever animal they use to make the filler DNA (the pigeon?). This is a bird, for example, where there is apparently only a single written description of its nest. We can't test against a reference implementation, so the only comparison we can make is to a relative handful of 16th- and 17th-century observations. įun article about a Wikipedia revision war about the territory of the brown rat: One town formed a posse when they found an infestation and killed them with brooms and sticks. Once the initial kill-off was done (which was accomplished with ludicrous amounts of poison), it's mostly about protecting the provincial border. The only one that's very viable is the Norway rat, and even then it's too cold for them to live outside all year round - so if you can keep them out of structures you can eliminate them entirely. One big thing is that it is too cold in Alberta for most rats to survive. ![]() Not an academic paper, but this is a good summary of the history. Perhaps the dodo, who will live at the mercy of peoples' tastes, will not be so different from many of us. ![]() In a way, the same may be true of humans, who are all utterly dependent on the rest of society. Dogs are not totally incapable creatures, but in America they live almost exclusively as domesticated pets. Maybe that's not a horrible ecological niche. "Yes, let's bring back the dodo", I think, "maybe we can be friends". But as it stands, I find it hard to imagine, and my impulse is to try to befriend the creatures. I suppose when you're hungry you eat anything, and once you've killed your first animal for meat, then the second and third become easier, so if I were not an insulated modern myself (indeed a bit like the dodo), then I would maybe have an easy time killing one. I have always found the dodo to be a sympathetic animal, though. Or keeping COVID from becoming endemic in China (or any other country). It seems like a fight against entropy, which requires ongoing work, like maintaining two thermal reservoirs at different temperatures. Humans will need to maintain strict control over what other species are allowed into its habitat (the article mentions rats in particular). ![]() Yet, to expand on points made by other posters, the very existence of this species requires a kind of ecological disequilibrium. "Bring back as many of these magnificent creatures as possible!", I think. At a basic aesthetic level, a world that has dodos, and woolly mammoths, and sabre tooth tigers, is a more interesting one. At one level this delights me and gives me optimism. ![]()
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