A mouse-sized marsupial could be the key to saving the Tasmanian tiger from extinction – World News

Scientists at the University of Melbourne, Australia, are hoping a tiny marsupial could hold the key to bringing the Thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, back from the dead

Scientists in Australia want to bring the Tasmanian tiger back to life by recreating the extinct species through gene editing.

The University of Melbourne team is hoping a tiny marsupial could hold the key to bringing the Thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, back from the dead

A team of genetic scientists led by life sciences professor Andrew Pask wants to make the idea of ​​”de-extinction” a reality.

Over the next 10 years, they hope to use “gene editing” to turn a Dunnart marsupial cell into a thylacine cell and bring the creature back to life.

“I love Jurassic Park!” said Pash. “I love it.”

Doubts call extinction projects costly mistakes that are part of conservation and could have “unintended consequences”.

He hopes advances in science will help recreate the Thylacine and help endangered animals survive.

Pask said, “When people say, ‘Didn’t we learn anything from Jurassic Park?’ – Well, bringing a velociraptor back to a thylacine is a whole different thing,”

The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, was his favorite extinct species and resembled a small striped-back wolf. The last known is said to have died in 1936.

He initially hopes to convert Dunnart cells into Thylacine cells using a controversial gene-editing technology.

The team will then create an embryo either in a laboratory or in a live surrogate animal.

They then want to use a female marsupial and watch her give birth to a baby thylacine.

When the animal is old enough, it is raised to adulthood before a healthy population of Thylacine is released.

The Washington Post reports, “It’s certainly doable,” said Owain Edwards, group leader for environmental synthetic genomics at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

“Absolutely. What they suggest can be done.

“What is not yet clear to anyone: what exactly will become of it? Because it will never be a pure thylacine.”

In 2016, The Mirror reported how nature lovers believed they had spotted a thylacine that was believed to be extinct.

A stunning new clip is said to show a Tasmanian tiger, or Thylacine, walking through a back garden in South Australia.

Members of an awareness group for the animals, also known as the Tasmanian wolf, say it’s evidence the animals are still alive.

Video, taken by an Adelaide resident in February, shows a dog-like creature moving behind a rubbish bin and disappearing into a bush.

And hopeful observers believe the animal has the same markings and body shape as the extinct creature – and claim five people first saw it in the same area in March 2015.