This is pretty cool. Researchers have sequenced the DNA of an extinct cave bear. They seem to be overly pessimistic about the implications of this, though, at least in my opinion:
“In hundreds or thousands of years from now, we may have advanced our technology so we can create creatures from DNA sequence information,” Dr Eddy Rubin, director of the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California, told the BBC News website.
I think that “decades” is the appropriate timeframe here. And this is the most interesting part, to me:
the scientists hope to be able to sequence the DNA of ancient humans, which lived at the same time as cave bears, raising the prospect of perhaps one day being able to “build” a Neanderthal from their genetic blueprint.
This would raise some interesting ethical issues. Would a Neanderthal be considered fully human, with standard-issue human rights? Or would he or she be kept in a glorified zoo? It might be dangerous to let them run loose, because we would have no idea what the temperament would be, and the fossil evidence of their musculature indicates that they could probably wrestle cave bears for recreation.
Just making one wouldn’t necessarily give us insight into the subspecies as a whole, in terms of its mental capacity, temperament, etc. But it would be fascinating to find out just how smart a modern Neanderthal, raised in a modern technological environment, would be.