Scientists in Japan clone mice dead for 16 years

Articles — By forcechange on November 4, 2008 11:05 am

We raised the issue of biodiversity loss earlier today.  Basically, the concern is that species extinctions are not just a warning flag, but also pose an inherent problem, in of itself.  Although it is not really being proposed as a solution to this problem, scientists in Japan have recently announced the cloning of mice that had been dead for 16 years.

While animals have already been cloned by scientists, this new process is different since it takes animals that have been dead and frozen for a number of years.  Normally, when a cell is frozen it bursts, which has up until now made it impossible to clone frozen animals (like wooly mammoths).  With this new process, there is the possibility to clone long-dead creatures that have been frozen. 

In theory, this could allow scientists to freeze animals that are on the verge of extinction to be cloned in the future when environmental conditions improve.  However, this is pure speculation on our part, and would, of course, not address the more immediate problems stemming from loss of biodiversity.

Photo credit.