Frozen Ark in Bayou Country
This item comes from the BBC from back in May, but I just discovered it tonight. To my mind it dovetails nicely with the zombie dogs story, to which I've given several posts' worth of attention lately.
Down in Louisiana, at the Audubon Nature Institute, they're creating a "frozen zoo"--a place where cells from rare and endangered animals can be preserved against the day when the animals might become extinct. New living individuals presumably could be cloned from the preserved cells, should the need or desire arise.
The frozen zoo consists of a group of liquid nitrogen tanks "looking more like milk churns than anything else," according to the BBC's reporter. Inside the tanks, though, are cells from more than 1,000 different species. The cells can be kept in their preserved state for hundreds of years.
"In theory, no species alive today should ever become extinct, as long as one of the dozen frozen zoos around the world has a cell sample, [the scientist in charge of the project] said: "If we'd done this with the dinosaurs... the cells would be alive."
Among the species they have suspended in cell form are gorillas, Sumatran tigers and the mountain bongo antelope.
Technorati Tags:
animals, zoos, cryonics, cryogenics, cloning, science, Louisiana, cell cultrue, endangered species, ecology, environmentalism, biology, news, BBC, clones, extinction, dinosaurs, tigers, gorillas, antelopes, preservation, posterity
Down in Louisiana, at the Audubon Nature Institute, they're creating a "frozen zoo"--a place where cells from rare and endangered animals can be preserved against the day when the animals might become extinct. New living individuals presumably could be cloned from the preserved cells, should the need or desire arise.
The frozen zoo consists of a group of liquid nitrogen tanks "looking more like milk churns than anything else," according to the BBC's reporter. Inside the tanks, though, are cells from more than 1,000 different species. The cells can be kept in their preserved state for hundreds of years.
"In theory, no species alive today should ever become extinct, as long as one of the dozen frozen zoos around the world has a cell sample, [the scientist in charge of the project] said: "If we'd done this with the dinosaurs... the cells would be alive."
Among the species they have suspended in cell form are gorillas, Sumatran tigers and the mountain bongo antelope.
Technorati Tags:
animals, zoos, cryonics, cryogenics, cloning, science, Louisiana, cell cultrue, endangered species, ecology, environmentalism, biology, news, BBC, clones, extinction, dinosaurs, tigers, gorillas, antelopes, preservation, posterity
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