The BBC's Future section looks at the impact animal cloning — in particular extinct animal cloning — could have on tourism. Too bad it didn't help this guy.
But scientists might eventually be able to do that with other species that died out more recently than mammoths – like passenger pigeons. This would involve mapping the entire passenger pigeon genome, then mutating a common pigeon’s genome so that it’s akin to a passenger pigeon’s. Voilà: a cloned extinct species.
The science has come a long way since Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996, says University of Connecticut biotechnology professor Xiuchun (Cindy) Tian, who is working on reactivating nucleus-based DNA through cloning.