A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting, usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me.
TASMANIAN tigers are a step closer to returning from extinction thanks to an extinct frog that gave birth through its mouth, says a leading researcher.
Professor Mike Archer, a professor of palaeobiology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said yesterday he expected to see tigers roaming Tasmanian bush within his lifetime, after being brought back to life using gene technology.
He said an important step was taken in the past few weeks when a research team he was working with managed to create embryos of an unusual frog known as the gastric brooding frog, which became extinct in Australia during the 1980s. The frog incubated its young in its stomach and gave birth through its mouth.
He said the embryos containing the DNA of the extinct frog were created by using tissue from a frog that had been frozen before the species became extinct.
Researchers injected DNA from the frozen frog into eggs from living frogs of a similar species and produced cloned embryos that lasted for a few days.
Professor Archer began a project in 2000, which was shelved in 2003, to bring the Tasmanian tiger back to life and said the brooding frog success showed extinct animals could be brought back to life.
