To be brought back from extinction!
Science is a wonderful thing -- it's given us Hot Pockets and streaming video of monkeys smelling their filthy fingers -- but it looks like it's time to pay the piper, as science is heading off into a horrifying "Jurassic Park" direction. Two different groups of scientists propose bringing two extinct species back to life -- a kind of giant cow called an aurochs that went extinct in the 1600s, and a species of giant Galapagos tortoise that vanished before Darwin arrived.
Now, cows and turtles may not seem like a T-Rex and a gaggle of raptors at first glance, but these animals aren't as harmless as you might think. Current giant tortoises can grow to over 6 feet in length and 300 lbs., and the auroch was the cow you've seen in cave paintings that dwarfed all the little hunters. That wasn't because cavemen hadn't mastered perspective, it's because the aurochs weighed more than a ton and stood over 6 feet tall at the shoulder.
Researchers at Yale managed to get to know Galapagos tortoises well enough to identify DNA in nine of them, and that helped link them to their giant, extinct ancestor. It's believed ancient whalers caught the tortoises and then pitched them overboard in favor of more lucrative catches.
The abandoned reptiles swam to shore and bred with the locals and now their nine great, great, great grandchildren have enough genetic material amongst them to start a selective breeding program that will, it's hoped, resurrect the species. Because a tortoise can live for just short of forever, the program could take over a century to complete, but the end result will be some behemoth turtles that will slowly and methodically hunt us to our doom if we cross them.
In Italy, scientists managed to map the aurochs' genome and are now back breeding the beast through some selective programs with currently existing giant, menacing cows. They've already accomplished round one of the breeding program and are waiting to see how the calves turn out before moving on to round two. Presumably, somewhere around round 10 comes world domination on the backs of an army of monster cattle. And if you're still not sure if you should be worried, it doesn't seem like anyone has a plan to actually do anything with the giant, angry animals once they show up. They just want to see if they can make them.
On the positive side, we look forward to a Godzilla-vs.-King Kong-type battle between massive cow and tortoise.
