#deextinction

[reasonsforhope]

"During an archaeological dig in a desert area north of Jerusalem 40 years ago, a seed was discovered which was determined to be in pristine condition but had obviously seen many a year.

Now, despite falling from its parent 1,000 years ago, it has grown into a mature tree, and botanists examining it believe it may be an extinct species that was used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years—even receiving a nod in the Bible.

Neither Israeli botanists, nor Dr. Sarah Sallon, a physician who founded the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, could determine what species it was from simply from the seed covering. So they did what nature intended—they planted it.

Using a well-documented technique that saw 2,000-year-old date palm fruit pits germinate, Dr. Sallon soaked the seed in hormones, liquid fertilizer, and water, and then planted it in a pot of sterile seed; then waited.

Despite its genetic code being exposed to environmental stressors for over 1,000 years, the seed sprouted after 5 weeks. The shoot was protected by a caplike feature called an operculum. As the shoot grew, the operculum was shed—leaving something for the team to radiocarbon date. It narrowed down the age of the almost 10-centuries-old seed to between the years 993 an 1202.

Fast forward 14 years and the plant has become a 10-foot-tall tree. Dr. Sallon shared images of the tree, its bark, and its leaves with botanists around the world. One expert suggested it belonged to the genus Commiphora, found across the Arabian Peninsula and parts of Africa. A genetic analysis subsequently revealed this was the case, but a perfect match was lacking.

Pictured: The tree, now 14 years old.

Dr. Sallon and her team thought it was an extinct species known from history as Judean Balsam, but the best way to confirm that suspicion would be to have some aromatic traces similar to the resins of the myrrh tree to which it is related. However, no such fragrant compounds were detected.

Instead, the chemical analysis of the leaves identified a group of phytochemicals known as guggulterols which have been observed in a related species called Commiphora wightii that’s known to possess certain cancer-fighting properties in its resin.

A medicinal balm, the origin of which is not known, is mentioned in multiple historical texts including the Bible as ‘tsori,’ and rather than the fragrant Judean Balsam, it’s this tsori that Dr. Sallon and her team believe they have found.

They must wait until the tree, now 14 years old, produces flower or fruit to know for sure if it’s an extinct species, and if so, how to perhaps keep it alive.

Dr. Louise Colville, senior research leader in seed and stress biology at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London who wasn’t involved in the research, told CNN that it was a major accomplishment to grow a seed that old and possibly lead to a resurrection of this Biblical botanical.

“What’s surprising in this story is it was just a single seed and to be able to have one chance for that to germinate is extremely lucky,” she said.

“Working in a seed bank, seeing the potential for that extreme longevity gives us hope that banking and storing seeds that some at least will survive for very long periods of time.”"

-via Good News Network, October 8, 2024

--

Note: This is such a good demonstration of why seed banks are so important!! They give us such real and massive hope for deextinction and the revival of endangered species.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Ok so obviously reviving non avian dinosaurs would be both impossible and I'll advised but like..... what about cloning like elephant birds or moas?

I mean look, we need to stop thinking about bringing the dead back to life and trying to use conservation efforts to preserve endangered living species. That's what I really think

that said, if some rich person made a Moa or an Elephant Bird, my reaction will still be "coooooool". there's just an asterisk after the word, that's all

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

The thing that bothers me about the idea of de-extinction is that people are spending millions to bring a species back from extinction...but there are species that are severely endangered right now. Climate change is happening right now.

I just saw a headline about how a company raised $200 million to try to ressurect extinct species. But we can't guarantee we can keep them alive in a changing environment. We haven't reversed climate change. And while we've stopped some species from going extinct, we've failed for other species.

It just seems to me that while it would be cool to have the dodo or the thylacine back, we should be focused on helping species that are endangered.

[sagehills]

List of tags for Sagehills: "https://www.tumblr.com/sagehills/tagged/fantastical%20fiction"

#human dorks

#life hacks

#relationship tips

#world of color: hope posting, faith in humanity

#glimpses of starlight: posts I want to show myself and children as emblematic of the good old days

#fantastical fiction: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Fairy Tales respun

#med patient stories

#history: fun facts, of course

#a cabin of my own

#mundo para vos: beautiful sights of this world

#slice of life

#festival_ani

#reflected_meteor_streak: that art that feels like “immortalizations of joy” : reflected%20meteor%20streak

#moondust ions: ethereal night

#tea_shop_lee

#tool_sites

#beewing veil: one-of-a-kind, delicate crafts

#milky way dress: unique crafts and design break downs

#deextinction #cottage_plachenta: those adorable boys in homely aesthetic #depthless_blue_sky: emotional scenes form stories or games

#masterpost_library

Fandom tags:

#yuurivoice

#dpxdc #bat family

[its-suanneschafer-author]

My February 2023 books read. The best of these: an ARC of #BrokenBayou (a thriller that oozes malice on every page) by #JenniferMoorehead, #AMothToFlame by #JoeClifford (a thriller with a unique ticking clock), #Extinction by #DouglasPreston (a #JurassicPark type thriller), and the #HeroesOfOlympus series (terrific YA reading) by #RickReardon.

[whowatchesthewolfwatchers]

Hey don’t worry venture capitalists are already on it! It’s gonna be fine, at least one of them saw the movie!

“A Dallas company trying to use ancient genetic material to create modern-day versions of woolly mammoths — a quest aimed at fighting climate change and advancing health care — has raised $75 million from venture capitalists, the billionaire producer of “Jurassic World” and Paris Hilton”

Dear necromancers, why would you bother summoning human corpses when dinosaurs are an option

[skyeoak]

Fantasy readers really ask “why can’t dragons be real” like homo sapiens DIDN’T kill off the majority of the world’s megafauna

(It’s me I’m fantasy readers)

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

I know you probably get asked this all the time, but if the technology to clone dinosaurs existed what do you think would happen? (Aside from how they could never be released in the wild, of course) What dinosaur would you most like to see? Also, do you think we could bring back dinosaurs (to a small degree) through selective breeding with birds over time? I doubt it would be possible, but I like to dream!

So, we can't clone nonavian dinosaurs because they're super old. DNA degrades pretty rapidly, and we do not have actually confirmed DNA fragments from anything older than around 2.5 million years. It's just impossible to clone nonavian dinosaurs unless we figure out time travel.

If we do figure out time travel and bring nonavians back, I need to see the first dinosaur. I need to see what level of fluff it had. Frankly, tons of triassic weirdos, because I need to see their floof levels and figure out how feathers evolved. Beyond that, there's too many dinosaurs for me to list.

If we're talking about the avian dinosaurs from the past 2.5 million years we *could*, theoretically, find DNA for and bring back, then I want Pelagornis. That eldritch horror was taken from us waaaaay too soon.

Reverse engineering a dinosaur won't work. I know, because that's what I wanted to do originally, and I went to my first grad program to figure out how to do it, and I learned a lot, and what I learned was that the answer is "no" and Jack Horner needs a new hobby. There's too many variables afoot and too many nonavian dinosaur features that just cannot be put back into the bird genome. What can ya do.

[despazito]

i think deextinction might be taken a bit more seriously if they stfu about mammoths.

[dykegeology]

Yeah thylacine deextinction stuff is cool or whatever but personally I think we should prioritise genetically engineering dunnarts to be about a meter high. This is clearly 100% for science and it is soooo important ecologically one could even say essential...

[official-nature-posts]

Official nature post

One flock in 1866 in southern Ontario was described as being 1 mi (1.5 km) wide and 300 mi (500 km) long, took 14 hours to pass, and held in excess of 3.5 billion birds. That number, if accurate, would likely represent a large fraction of the entire population at the time.

(Fact Source) For more facts, follow Ultrafacts

[its-suanneschafer-author]

ICYMI BOOK REVIEW: #Ambushed by #CarolPotenza. A Jurassic Park type mystery with a hint of unrequited love, third in a series.

[notedchampagne]

silly idea for a modern au harrow but maybe palaeontology/archaeology would give sufficient access to bones + being weird about anatomy. archaeology could even have the religious side or if she was a palaeontologist she could be into de-extinction which is about as close to necromancy irl as we can get. also i have a friend in my paleo course who dresses exactly like harrow and it’s really funny

i give you points for catching me off guard with that answer joidsajfoiew im too much of a homestuck to stop associating archaeology with dave & aradia. deextinction is fascinating though im going to wikipedia deep dive on that one when i have time

[mashedcontroller]

Wanna hear my SRS headcannons.

- I bless thee with Autism

- Special interest is purposed organisms, which includes but is not limitted to slugcats, iterators, and the rot.

- so, the pearl that gave Pebbles the rot was just a really massive infodump. Suns didn't imagine that Pebbles would do anything with the pearl.

- so, yeah, they were a bit of a wreck after the whole Pebbles incident.

- they are also genuinely the most knowledgeable iterator when it comes to information around purposed organisms

- SRS is the last iterator to collapse due to their extensive knowledge of iterator superstructures and creating purposed organisms to provide Suns with the important maintenence needed for them to survive. Most maintenence is done by an editted variant of Scavs.

- most of the ecosystem around Suns' can is just random crap that Suns' made. There were some deextinction projects in there, but the revived species were also heavily modified. Because giving a Tiger a Gun is cool. But yeah, Suns' has the ecosystem of all time.

- Spearmaster is immortal. A lot of Suns' favorite purposed organisms are. Turns out that building for immortality isn't actually that hard. Like, the Mark of Communication is a significantly more complicated process.

- Suns' is primarily nonverbal. It's not something that other iterators would know unless they were close to Suns due to primarily speaking through text logs, but Suns doesn't like speaking and is rather noise sensitive when it comes to their puppet.

- Suns' city has basically be repurposed into a menagerie. When all's said and done, Suns is out here living their best life.

- Their answer to the Big Question at some point becomes "idc :)." Since, like, nothing that's still alive gives much of a fuck.

- Suns just fucking shoots Saint until they leave. Like, cat starts t-posing. On sight with that fucker lmao. No bullet hell, only gun. If we wanna be sad boi hours, Saint manages to ascend Spearmaster despite Suns' best efforts.

- also Spearmaster I'd Suns' favorite purposed organism. They were a fun challenge to design and they're also their pet scug.