Jurassic Park

A series of films directed by Stephen Spielberg during the 90’s that combined the genre of science fiction with dinosaurs. First of all, the archeological findings of dinosaurs such as Sue, and the popularization of paleoart lead Spielberg to think about a movie idea surrounding these creatures. The interesting thing about this movie is that it was the first one to introduce de-extinction to the big screen in a science-fiction way. It did it by introducing us into a park where scientists genetically edit extinct dinosaurs’ broken DNA using frog DNA, and so create a full dinosaur DNA, and raise them in the park as a type of zoo. It goes off the rails when the dinosaurs escape or something.

Jurassic World

After the huge success of Jurassic Park, there has been a soft reboot of the trilogy in attempts to milk more money from the franchise. It involved genetically engineering the dinosaurs once again, but instead of adding missing code to the DNA, recreating history accurately, they just edited the code to make the dinosaurs much bigger and stronger, unlike how they’ve been 67 million years ago. That’s why Jurassic Park is considered science fiction, and Jurassic World is more of a fantasy (Like Harry Potter 😉).

Resurrection Biology/ de-extinction

The act of getting extinct species to be not extinct by a few ways listed below. The benefits in de-extinction is that there will be a lot of research benefits, such as looking at how animals from the long past have functioned, and it could also help us fill holes in theories around evolution. It also has a beneficial impact on our environment, because when an animal is extinct, its environment’s food web might become messed up, and by bringing it back quickly the food web won’t mess up. Scientist Sergey Zimov claims that if we bring back the wooly mammoth back to the tundra it may slow the melting of ice caps, slowing global warming.
The non-benefits for de-extinction are that the huge amount of money spent on bringing back an extinct species can just be spent on species that are endangered, and so practicing in de-extinction does have a negative impact on already endangered species. On top of that, a biologist in Carleton University, Joseph Bennet claims that if a billionaire wants to do it from his own money that’s cool, however giving an excuse for someone else like the gov to pay for it is wrong, as explained.
The key element to bring an extinct species is DNA. Because DNA has a half life of 521 years (every 521 years 50% of the present DNA code has been broken ), after 6.8 million years you cannot have access to the species DNA, therefore dinosaurs can’t really come back, as scientist Robert Lanza claims.

Back Breeding

A form of breeding where we breed back into living populations a trait from an extinct species. For example, if we want to bring back a wooly mammoth, we’ll get a lot of elephants to have babies with each other. Let’s say 500 elephants have babies with each other and now we have 50000 elephants, and so now some of these babies have rare traits, and lets say 7 of them have a little hair. We get these seven and have them have babies with each other a lot untill that gene of brown wool on skin becomes more dominant, and we do that a couple more times until we get something similar to the wooly mammoth. This technique doesn’t really bring back the extinct species…. I mean, it doesn’t bring back the wooly mammoth, but just an elephant with brown wool. Zoos love it, but scientists not so much as these guys just want to examine the species’ authentic DNA, which is not present by using this method, as you create a kind of hybrid.

Interspecies Cloning/ Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer

The only method where humans can bring back 100% of the extinct species, and not some hybrid ripoff. With this method, we take a complete full genome, therefore it works only on species that were extinct not that much time ago, and so we take that full genome from the cell and put that genome in a living cell nucleus of a living species, and establishing pregnancy in that existing species with the extinct species cell nucleus inside their cells, and so we get to clone the extinct species, like literally an exact one by one clone of the animal its original DNA was taken from. Scientists love this method, although it works only on species that were extinct not so long ago, as we need a pretty complete genome for this. For example, we’ll take the DNA of the recently extinct Pyrenean Ibex, and replace the cell nucleus of a normal goat with the DNA we took, and so that random goat now has in its cells a Pyrenean Ibex DNA. We’ll make this goat pregnant and the baby will be an exact copy of the Pyrenean Ibex. As I said, to disadvantages, that are that the animal needs to be recently extinct, and also there has to be a lot of different DNA samples of the species, as the species will struggle with genetic problems (having sex with your clone seems so cool, but is no good idea). The only successful attempt of cloning is of a normal sheep, Dolly, but it’s not in the context of de-extinction, as sheep weren’t extinct.

Genetic Engineering/ Genome editing

A de-extinction method where scientists manipulate the genomes of a living species that look similar to the extinct species to make a new species that looks like the extinct one, or retrieving a broken DNA sample and filling the blank code with the code of the similar living species. Nevertheless, in both ways modifying the DNA is used by tools such as CRISPR, that can be used to insert the corresponding genetic material into the genome of a closely related living species, and by that they can potentially re-create a hybrid that looks similar to what the extinct species looked like. Problem, again, is that with our tech it still doesn’t resemble all of the extinct species’ traits, and so they are still considered hybrids. Hopefully though as CRISPR advances, these species will be 100% accurate.

Technology carries de-extinction

De-extinction started in the 90’s, and then it took a lot of money and time in order to extract an extinct species’ DNA. Nowadays, it is much cheaper and takes much less time with our technology, specifically AI and Multidimensional databases. AI carries de-extinction as it has the ability to learn the pattern of the long genetic code of an extinct species, and with that to fill the broken DNA code in much less time, and also can create embryos of these extinct species. Multidimensional databases carries de-extinction as now instead of storing billions of genetic codes in databases in the size of a house, now you can store a lot in a simple multidimensional database chip, making it very cheap. When in the 90’s it took 1 billion dollars and 13 years to extract DNA, now it takes around 20 minutes and less than 600$ to do that. The manager of the Catalyse Science Fund, Bridget Baumgartner and Micron Senior Business Development Manager Eric Booth both support the usage of AI and Multidimensional databases in order to cause de-extinction.

Criterias to determine whether a species can be practically de-extinct

Ornithologist Susan Haig gives us a few criterias to whether a species is viable for biological resurrection.  First, the sooner it's extinct the better, as the DNA doesn’t break that much. That’s why it will be much easier to bring back the dodo who was extinct 500 years ago than the dinosaurs who were extinct 67 million years ago.
Secondly, the species should also be nonmigratory, as it will be easier to find its DNA in just one area instead of all the areas it migrated to.
Thirdly, if it mates monogamously, aka having sex with only one partner is better, as it will help scientists control the breeding, making the population grow more quickly, making the breed more genetically closer to the original.
Fourthly, if the edited infants are similarly sized to the normal ones, a mommy elephant might not be able to carry a baby mammoth.  
Fifthly, if the newborns are self-sufficient, as if they depend on their host animal, they will behave just like it and not in the way it behaved before it was extinct, ruining the whole point of de-extinction.

K-T boundary

A geological boundary between the Cretaceous period and the Paleogene period, which occurred 66 million years ago. The change between these periods is that in the Cretaceous period there were dinosaurs, and in the Paleogene they were not to be seen anymore. That’s because between these two periods the meteor struck earth. It is now a layer of iridium on earth, and it helps archeologists understand in what period were fossils lived, by looking where it is in contrast to the K-T boundary. Also the main source of evidence people believe a meteor really struck the dinosaurs.

Revive & Restore

A foundation that wants to enhance biodiversity through the genetic rescue of endangered and extinct species. They tend to fund the following examples of resurrection biology, and were co-founded by Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan.

Black-footed ferrets

A species of ferrets in North America who are endangered. The manager of the Catalyst Science Fund, Bridget Baumgartner, decided to fund research projects for Revive & Restore, a nonprofit genetic rescue organization leading the de-extinction charge. These species are endangered because they don’t do too much sex with each other, yet they are important for the North American biodiversity, and so before they’ll go extinct that nonprofit organization tries to extract as much DNA as possible. San Diego’s Frozen Zoo has genetic material of more than 1000 species, and researchers hope to clone two different ferret breeds with the remaining black-footed ferrets and so breed them to have more babies.

Tasmanian tiger/ thylacine

A species of tigers that lived during the ice age with saber-like teeth. They evolved in Australia 5 million years ago, and then found themselves stuck in Tasmania, the lonely island south of Australia we all hide in when watching the videos of “Jamal farted. Find a place on earth to hide”. It was extinct in the 20th century in a zoo as a result of habitat loss, human hunting and disease. Andrew Pask, a developmental biologist at the University of Melbourne claims that the Tasmanian Tiger is the best candidate for de-extinction, as his team sequenced its genome only 5% of the DNA was missing, and this 5% is repetitive so you can fix the problem by finding the repetition.

Christmas Island Rat

As a test for de-extinction, Tom Gilbert from the University of Copenhagen and Jian-Qing Lan from Shantou university tried to bring back the Christmas Island rat (Christmas Island is an Australian territory not far south of Indonesia) because it went extinct recently in 1908 and is closely related to the Norway rat, which scientists have studied thoroughly and whose complete genome they have and know how to modify. They extracted DNA and sequenced it many times, using the genome of the Norway rat as a reference to piece together as much as possible, but even after that almost 5% of its genome was still missing, which held a lot of its defining characteristics.

American Chestnut

A species of trees that are native in the NorthEastern side of the USA. During the 20th century there has been a mysterious mushroom, fungus, that spread quickly from New-York to the rest of New England (aka NorthEastern America). This fungus wiped out billions of trees, especially the American Chestnut, driving it into extinction, although for the last two decades Sara Fitzimmons, the director of restoration for the American Chestnut Foundation decided to add to the species’ genes a gene that makes the species immune to the fungus, which is like adding to humans a gene that counters coronavirus in mid pandemic. It is now still critically endangered but now it is at least not disappearing on such a big scale.

Wooly Mammoth

A species of ancient elephants who had smaller ears and brown fur, and were alive and kicking until about 10000 years ago. The last group of wooly mammoths survived until 1650 B.C, and they were extinct as a result of our climate becoming hotter (making them unable to survive in these conditions), and because of mass hunting. Two specimens in the Arctic from about 4,000 and 45,000 years ago were recently found, meaning these may have some DNA (better than nothing). The next step would be to use AI to copy and paste the wooly mammoth DNA to the asian elephant DNA and see if these match, and if they would our mammoth will come back. If not, we can breed an egg cell of an asian elephant and a sperm cell of a wooly mammoth to create a ½ asian elephant ½ wooly mammoth, and then back-breed them to have the wooly mammoth DNA more dominant, making it extremely close to the good ol’ wooly mammoth. Another way is to fill the blank parts of the wooly mammoth DNA with the similar asian elephant DNA with SPNCR technology (simply genome editing), and is led by George Church, a scientist hoping to introduce these wooly mammoth hybrids to Pleistocene Park, a place in Siberia where they can chill and not overheat. Bringing back the wooly mammoths from the two DNA samples will not give us a big variety of mammoths, therefore there will be some genetic problems as they need to have babies with their sisters and moms, and on top of that wooly mammoths go in big groups and our small group will make them depressed. Last but not least bringing back mammoths will have babies with the asian elephants who are already endangered, as explained in the de-extinction part.

Pyrenean Ibex/ bucardo

A species of ibexes which was mostly in Western Europe, in countries such as Portugal, Andorra Spain and France. That area had a lot of goats and sheeps, and because there was a lot of competition in one area, the bucardos didn’t have any food. while humans hunted them and they had sex with their sisters. That’s why in 2000, the last Portuguese Ibex, Cecilia, died because a tree fell on her. Luckily, a few months prior some scientists took her DNA and froze it until 2009 when they cloned her, and out of 500 goats only one of them got pregnant with Cecelia, although there was a problem with the lungs of the newborn Pyrenean Ibex, and so it died after a few seconds. So it was extinct twice, yet it is a big step towards a good de-extinction project. The project was led by Dr. Alberto Fernandez-Arias.

Passenger Pigeon

The passenger Pigeon was THE pigeon of the 19th century, but was extinct at the beginning of the 20th century as a result of commercial exploitation, loss of habitat, and hunting. The last passenger pigeon, Martha, died in a zoo in 1914. A scientist from Revive & Restore, Ben Novak, sequenced the DNA of the species’ cousin, the band-tailed pigeon, and hopefully until 2025 this unique ¾ passenger pigeon ¼ band tailed pigeon breed will be revived.

Moa

A type of Emu who lived in New Zealand and could kick as a form of aggression. As a result of colonialist hunting they were extinct in the 15th century. There has been a de-extinction attempt in 2017 by a team of scientists at the University of Adelaide led by Mike Lee, who used genome editing to create a chicken embryo with just some of the Moa’s genetic traits, using CRISPR-Cas9. Because this chicken embryo doesn't have all of the Moa’s traits, this is not considered real de-extinction, but just a weird hybrid.

Dragon

I’ll just trust what Guy says, although it might be a complete miss. So hear me out, Guy says because Dragons weren’t real creatures, we can’t de-extinct them, as they weren’t extinct in the first place. Where were they actually extinct? In Game of Thrones. So I’ll go for it, hopefully I don’t miss it. So 150 years before the series starts, King Aegon III of Tygerian has his last dragon dead as a result of overhunting, disease and lack of suitable habitat. Then at the beginning of the series the next generation of the Tygerians, Halisi, aka Daenerys Targaryen still keeps the three eggs the last dragon had made, although they haven’t broke in years, making people think they don’t work well, but she was patient and at the end three dragons were born, getting the Dragons back on track. However (spoiler) two die. So Dragons are not okay after all.

Dodo/ Raphus Cucullatus

A bird who can’t fly, and was chilling on the lonely island of Mauritius. Because the dodos didn’t have a predator on that island, they evolved to be birds who don’t act when they are being hunted. Therefore when the colonizers came they just didn’t run away when being hunted, and they were extinct in 1681. The scientific world says that Ben Novak’s strat to bring back or get out of endangerment the Passenger Pigeon, and also the Black-Footed Ferret can also work on our Dodo. The most similar species to the dodo is the Southeast Asian Nicobar pigeon.

Auroch

The ancestors of today’s cows, which are bigger and have cool horns. They used to be a key part of the Western European ecosystem, but the ecosystem had a drastic change, making them go extinct. Now when the ecosystem needs them the most, they are still extinct. Well, they were extinct back in the 17th century. Scientists want to bring back these Aurochs to bring back the farmlands, and there have been several attempts to bring them back. The first one was made by Heinz and Lutz Heck, some German zookeeper bros who wanted to have some cows who look like Aurochs in the fields of Germany and in their zoo, so they back-breeded cows to look like the Aurochs in the 1930’s. Funny to note that the Nazi guy Hermann Goring also said they wanted to bring the Aurochs back because they are superb cows for superb Nazis. Nowadays, Ronald Goderie wants to bring them back to the Coa Valley in Portugal to help nature, by back breeding too, but now doing it more precisely, and by relying more on cave paintings and stuff people once said about it, like how Julius Caesar depicted them.

Post-Mortem Facial Reconstruction (PMFR)

A technique that uses anatomical knowledge of a skull to flesh out the face of that individual. This can be put in the context of archeology with having skulls of neanderthals such as the old man of Shanidar or Lucy and getting to see how they looked when they were alive, but also it can be put in a forensic context. How exactly? Forensic artists work with the law enforcement to identify victims of crime when their identity is not known but they do have their skull remained.

Post-Mortem Facial Reconstruction in forensic context

When we want to identify a victim, just with his skull you can use post-mortem facial reconstruction, or as it is called in the forensic field, the Gatliff/Snow American Tissue Depth Method, created and developed by Betty Pat Gatliff and Dr. Clyde Snow. The method assisted in identifying victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy and reproducing the head of John F. Kennedy, which was used to investigate his assassination.