Jurassic park so far fetched?

Rheobatrachus Silus

                Recently a team of scientist in Australia at the University of New South Wales called the Lazarus Project has made incredible progress in an all too familiar approach to reviving an extinct species. Unfortunately, the team hasn't been trying to generate dinosaurs. Instead the scientists have been bringing back an extinct specie of frog! Using a method called somatic cell nuclear transfer, the team has been animating animal cells with the DNA of an extinct frog specie known as the Rheobatrachus Silus, or the gastric-brooding frog. Somatic cell nuclear transfer works by taking living egg cells from a closely related frog and inactivating the nucleus within. They then transfer a dead nucleus into the cell from a carefully preserved specimen of the R. Silus. A good amount of the eggs actually began to divide and grow using the DNA from the extinct frog. Sadly none of these lived for more than a few days. But when these developing embryos died, they were identical in DNA to that of a R. Silus.
                The team is very confident in the advancement of using this cloning technology to explore nearly limitless possibilities.  "We've demonstrated already the great promise this technology has as a conservation tool when hundreds of the world's amphibian species are in catastrophic decline," says project lead, Professor Mike Archer. In fact the hundreds of scientists contributing to Project Lazarus are so sure in their new ability to 'de-extinct' animals that they plan to work wonders bringing back endangered and extinct animals. They even plan to generate animals such as the Tasmanian tiger, dodo bird, and even the woolly mammoth.


Themes of science:

-  science is testable: The entire Project Lazarus would be void if this new somatic cell nuclear transfer method couldn't be subject to experiment.
-  science is observable: Developing embryos are easily monitored as they grow while they do.
-  science is collaborative: it takes several personal and scientist working together to make this project successful.


Original article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130315151044.htm

Wiki on the gastric-brooding frog:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric-brooding_frog