Gastric-brooding frogs went extinct in Australia in the mid 1980's, probably thanks to humanity (shocking, I know). They're called gastric-brooding frogs because the mothers would swallow their fertilized eggs, then incubate them in their stomachs through the hatching and tadpole stages until it was finally time to puke up all their children. I really hope you're reading this on your lunch break by the way. And now scientists are going to
BRING THEM BACK TO LIFE and have already created early stage embryos of the species.
The revival of the genome was part of the Lazarus Project that is working on a so called de-extinction program to bring the dead species of frog back to life. So far the team of scientists was able to reactivate dead cells into living ones by unfreezing and implanting the nuclei, taken from fossilized tissues of the frog that were collected in the 1970s and preserved in a deep-freezer. "We are watching Lazarus arise from the dead, step by exciting step. We've reactivated dead cells into living ones and revived the extinct frog's genome in the process. Now we have fresh cryo-preserved cells of the extinct frog to use in future cloning experiments," said professor Mike Archer, of the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, the leader of the Lazarus Project team
For those of you who didn't go to vacation bible school, the Lazarus Project refers to Lazarus of Bethany, a man Jesus allegedly raised from the dead four days after his death, according to the Gospel of John. So basically scientists are for-real playing Jesus now. Me? I only play Jesus in sports that involve sprinting because he always wears sandals and can't run that fast. Isn't that right, Jesus? "Race you across the lake?" Good one. Thanks to clarissa, who didn't explain it all but that's okay because the unexplained parts I just attributed to magic like they used to in the old days before science came along and ruined everything.
via Geekologie - Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome http://geekologie.com/2013/03/mutants-here-we-come-extinct-frog-that-g.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+geekologie%2FiShm+%28Geekologie+-+Gadgets%2C+Gizmos%2C+and+Awesome%29 http://geekologie.com/
