Scientists to begin attempts at cloning turtles
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070712/...a_turtles_dc_1

Malaysia is launching a $9 million project to try to clone some of its threatened leatherback turtles in a last-ditch bid to save them from extinction.

Malaysian agricultural and veterinary experts will join scientists in domestic and foreign universities on the five-year project, the New Straits Times reported on Thursday.

Junaidi Che Ayub, chief of Malaysia's fisheries department, said the cloning procedure would first be carried out on green turtles, which are abundant in Malaysia's northeastern state of Terengganu, where the leatherbacks nest.

"Once we have perfected the technique, we will apply it to leatherback turtles as they are a more complicated species in the turtle family," the paper quoted Junaidi as saying.

Rantau Abang in Terengganu used to be the nesting home of one of the seven largest leatherback populations in the world but its population has declined by more than 99 percent since the 1960s, global conservation group WWF says on its Malaysia Web site.

Leatherbacks, known to scientists as Dermochelys coriacea, get their name from their leathery carapace, and have distinctive long front flippers, the site said.

They face threats such as the loss of nesting and feeding places, excessive egg-collection, fatal entangling in fishing nets, pollution and coastal development, it added.

Cloning animals involves taking the nuclei of cells from adults and fusing them into other egg cells that are implanted into a surrogate mother.

One of the most famous cloned animals, Dolly the sheep, was born in 1996. She was later euthanized at the age of 8 because of a degenerative lung condition.

Raph's Girl note: This should be interesting to read up on in the next couple years! :o

Breeding certain turtles is extremely complicated. And cloning is pretty common these days.

The problem with this program is, the species is in decline because of habitat loss and increasing crowding of the oceans, not just because there aren't enough leatherbacks.

First the cloning, then comes the experiments!;)

I had a dream that I was clearing out a town in a war torn city, and came across a couple of caged mutant baby turtles. Sometimes my dreams become actuality, but I never imagined that this particular dream would come true. Well, stranger things have happened.:D

You're right clones, then experiments, and eventually we'll get to the point of like Batman Beyond where people can get their genes spliced with animals to give them greater abilities! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! I mean... umm... I wouldn't know anything about stuff like that. :tangel:

Well why not... the Catholic church seems to be a ok with human/animal hybrids. :lol:

Oh geez....I am a scientist by all means but I hate cloning organisms. Yes it is possible to clone animals but there are problems with the cloned organism. Think back to Dolly, the cloned sheep, she had the same problems as the sheep that she was cloned from. As a result, Dolly did not live much longer than 10 years. The cells from an original Leatherback Sea turtle may have some deformities if they used an adult turtle. This would make the cloned cells have the same problems. The newly cloned turtle's cells would be about the same age as the original turtle. Also, it would be very difficult to determine if the newly cloned turtle would be male or female because in another thread, it is stated that turtles do not have gender chromosomes. Does this mean that if the original turtle is male and they put the fertilized embryo in a female so that an egg is produced, would the baby be a male or female? Or would the soil temperature still determine the gender make-up of the baby? In all, to me, cloning organisms is unethical.

well you see.....

eehhh too easy. I mean, on a TMNT site whith news of scientists and Turtles, you probably made all the good jokes in your head already.

its deffo cool, except it also seems unethical as all cloning seem to me.

to steal a line from gobo...I agree with Iris. So what? you wanna save the species so you're gonna clone a kajillion of them? Where are you gonna put them?

you have to solve the problem that caused the dying out...then, you may find that nature takes care of herself.