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A bounty on DNA

Use human greed to save our planet’s genetic diversity.
 
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A new breed of hunters, funded by a massive gene bank project, who don’t seek to kill anything, but rather, gather DNA samples from absolutely every organism that has a chance of becoming extinct. Not just one sample, but as many as possible without causing harm.

We have to face the fact that we’re losing valuable data, in the form of DNA, that has taken billions of years to evolve. Also we have to face the fact that few of us give a crap… really.

Why buy a chunk of rainforest, in the hope that nobody will burn it because it has an invisible fence, when you could send DNA hunters to catalog (freeze) any new organism’s DNA found. This way, the organism’s context could also be maintained. By that I mean: with each sample, also note the exact location relative to other samples, so that one day a computer could not only reassemble the creatures, but also their physical relationship with each other in a natural setting.

When a species is extinct, and you own it’s software, and there’s some novel application of it’s code…… greed in this case, may be good.

TIB, Nov 27 2003

Costa Rica's way of making money. http://www.pbs.org/..._rica/medicine.html
[Klaatu, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Percentage of protected lands http://www.unep-wcm.../camchts.htm#Chart2
Costa Rica has no standing army and can afford to do this. [Klaatu, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Poison Dart Frogs http://www.kingsnak...ians/amphworld.html
œ way down the page [Klaatu, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

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       Thanks for the link Klaatu. Baked already.... doh!
TIB, Nov 27 2003
  

       But, in this case, baked is good. I appreciate your head and heart looking to save the ecosystems. Keep at it! We need more thinkers like you.
Klaatu, Nov 27 2003
  

       Poison Dart frogs lose potency when in captivity. <link> Just to have the animal does not mean we can understand it outside of its environment. We can never know what makes the animal unique without taking the entire environment with it.   

       <mild rant> Want to protect rainforests? Do not eat at restaurants that raise beef on land that has been stripped of rainforest and that cannot support cattle for more than a few years. Give them a financial incentive to stop. <mild rant>
Klaatu, Nov 27 2003
  

       Sounds ok, except for the stuff about evolution.
theflyingdutchman, Dec 17 2003
  


 

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