A Brief History On September 7, 1936, Benjamin died. Ben was the last Thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wolf, a carnivorous marsupial of Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea. The introduction of Dingoes and climate change cut into their population, and hunting pressure did the rest. Digging Deeper Now that we have no living Thylacines, should scientists use cloning to resurrect the species? Are there any moral or practical reasons not to? What about other extinct species? Some of the critters we would like to see brought back through cloning include the Wooly Mammoth and the Wooly…
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A Brief History On September 6, 2013, ivory poachers in Africa poisoned and killed 41 elephants at the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. The WWF reports about 20,000 elephants are killed illegally each year in Africa by poachers, out of a world wide total of only 415,000 African elephants. Incredibly, in 1930 there were about 10 million wild elephants in Africa! Digging Deeper Despite strict anti-poaching laws, poaching takes a terrible toll on many types of animals. There may be about 30,000 Rhinos left in Africa, of which only 6000 are Black Rhinos, which numbered over 100,000 as recently as…
A Brief History On August 26, 1972, the XX Olympiad, Summer Games portion, opened in Munich, West Germany. Historic for many reasons, this edition of the Olympics featured the first ever named mascot of an Olympic Games, a Dachshund named “Waldi.” Digging Deeper In 1932, a Scottish Terrier born in the Olympic Village in Los Angeles became an unofficial mascot, and in 1968, Mexico City gave us a Red Jaguar, although again, unofficially. Many mascots have been depictions of fauna endemic to the country or area the Olympics were being held at, and of course the Dachshund is a dog…
A Brief History On July 5, 1996, a sheep named Dolly was born, the product of a cloning experiment making her the first ever mammal to be cloned. Using an adult somatic cell from one sheep, an egg cell from another sheep, and the resulting embryo implanted in the womb of a third sheep saw baby Dolly carried to term. Digging Deeper This experiment proved that taking DNA from any cell in a mammal’s body other than a gamete could be used to form a clone of that mammal, the implied meaning that any mammal could be cloned, including humans.…
A Brief History On June 18, 2023, we celebrate National Turkey Lovers’ Day, and yes, we too love Turkey! Americans are accustomed to having Turkey on Thanksgiving, and often on other holidays when a feast is the order of the day, but Turkey is great any time, whether it is deep fried, roasted, baked, fricasseed, made into lunch meat, breakfast sausage, hot dogs, ground meat or whatever! Digging Deeper A native bird of North America, the Turkey has gone from a wily and tough wild customer dating back 20 million years, to our more familiar domesticated variety that the President…