Robotics Bring Back Extinct Species Not With DNA But Engineering [Study]

The experts have been working on bringing back some of the extinct animals using their DNA samples. However, a team of engineers and paleontologists are making a new approach by attempting de-extinction using engineering, not DNA.

De-Extinction With Engineering

Scientists want to bring back extinct animals like woolly mammoths using the samples retrieved from the species and the genes of modern Asian elephants. However, an interdisciplinary team combined robotics and paleontology to bring some extinct animals to life. They did so using their engineering skills and not with the use of cells and DNA.

Through their study, the researchers have opened a window into the possible evolution and movement of a particular branch of the echinoderm clade, comprised of sea urchins, sand dollars, sea cucumbers, starfish, and brittle stars. Furthermore, this resurgence of robotics may inspire further advancements in design and engineering.

The creature in question is a marine invertebrate genus called Pleurocystites, which is thought to have been among the first groups of echinoderms capable of free motion. It existed approximately 450 million years ago during the Paleozoic era.

Unlike many of its predecessors, which were radially symmetrical, pleurocystites were bilaterally symmetrical. It had a calcified body with three appendages, two of which were short and curved feeding parts called brachioles, and the other was the longer and muscular appendage called stem.

"For many reasons, Jurassic Park would be impossible to produce," according to Imran Rahman, a paleontologist who researches animal evolutionary origins at London's Natural History Museum and was not involved in the study. He added that the robot "is the closest we're ever going to get to one of these animals alive."

Roboticists have previously recreated animals or sections of them using fossil records to deduce how once-living things traveled the earth. However, the recent study is the first to produce a robot miming an extinct echinoderm.

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Experts Bringing Back Extinct Animals

Researchers from Colossal Bioscience are trying to piece together the woolly mammoth's genome by using samples from found specimens and DNA from contemporary Asian elephants to fill in the gaps. Their objective is to reconstruct the woolly mammoth's genetic code, insert it into donor eggs from Asian elephants, fertilize the resulting embryos in vitro, and implant the ensuing progeny into surrogates.

However, one of the challenges is coaxing woolly mammoth embryos into surrogate elephants and finding governmental and cultural partners willing to enable the firm to unleash or "re-wild" - mammoths into their region.

The ambitious de-extinction project will involve cell technology, cloning, and breeding. The public should not be worried as the experts are not bringing dinosaurs.

Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm said woolly mammoths are "very charismatic creatures." If the experiment succeeds, the first woolly mammoth of the 21st century born by an Asian elephant will arrive by 2028.

Aside from woolly mammoths, scientists are looking into bringing back more extinct animals, including the Australian Tasmanian tiger that became extinct 3,000 years ago and the dodo, which was declared extinct in 1662. In addition, the specialists are trying to bring back the Aurochs (1600), the Southern gastric-brooding frog (1983), the Pyrenean ibex (2000), and the Christmas rat, which disappeared between 1898 and 1908.