Wednesday 10 March 2010

They Have Done It In A Film,

now scientists in real life have done it to an egg, or I should say egg shell, that is extract DNA from an extinct bird, a giant moa, it was 10ft tall, weighing in at half a tonne, commonly called an elephant bird, it died out hundreds of years ago, but the egg shell was found to contain DNA,
biologist Charlotte Oskam and colleagues at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, said eggshell is a resilient membrane that is frequently found in fossil deposits around the world, 'Using new techniques we obtain DNA signatures from a variety of fossil eggshells, including the extinct moa and elephant birds and 19,000-year-old old emu.', the elephant bird evolved at a time when birds ruled the earth and probably existed on Madagascar for 60 million years until dying out in the 17th century, bird eggshell is resilient and acts as a barrier to oxygen and water - the key causes of DNA damage,
in spite of its fearsome appearance it was a herbivore, and only ate plants, the moa was a flightless giant bird that lived in New Zealand until it was hunted to extinction in the 18th century, Emus are the world's second largest living bird and have survived 80 million years in Australia where they are found in the deserts, forests and on the plains, today a moa, maybe tomorrow a T. Rex? Jurassic Park gets one step closer!

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