[ti:American Company Aims to Bring Back the Dodo Bird]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[00:00.00]更多听力请访问21VOA.COM
[00:00.04]More investors are supporting a biotechnology company
[00:05.24]working on ways to bring back animals that have died off.
[00:09.92]Some scientists, however,
[00:12.88]are doubtful such research efforts are possible
[00:16.68]— or even a good idea.
[00:19.60]Colossal Biosciences first announced its plan
[00:23.52]to bring back a hairy ancestor of today's elephants,
[00:27.72]known as the woolly mammoth, two years ago.
[00:31.28]Recently, the company said it wanted
[00:34.68]to bring back the dodo bird: a large, flightless bird.
[00:40.32]"The dodo is a symbol of man-made extinction,"
[00:44.16]said Ben Lamm of Colossal Biosciences.
[00:48.12]The company has formed a special group
[00:51.28]that works on bird-related genetic technologies.
[00:56.52]The last dodo was killed in 1681
[01:00.40]on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.
[01:04.52]Colossal Biosciences is based in the city of Dallas, Texas.
[01:10.04]It started operations in 2021.
[01:14.08]Recently, the company announced
[01:17.16]it had raised an additional $150 million in financing.
[01:23.24]To date, it has raised $225 million from many investors
[01:29.48]that include United States Innovative Technology Fund,
[01:33.76]Breyer Capital and In-Q-Tel,
[01:37.04]an organization supporting national security agencies.
[01:42.40]The possibility of bringing the dodo back
[01:45.20]is not expected to directly make money, said Lamm.
[01:49.92]But the genetic tools and equipment
[01:52.96]that the company develops to try to do it
[01:56.32]may have other uses, including for human health care, he said.
[02:01.92]For example, Colossal Biosciences is now testing tools
[02:07.28]to change several parts of the genome at the same time.
[02:11.68]It is also working on technologies
[02:14.84]for what is sometimes called an "artificial womb," he said.
[02:20.52]The dodo's closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon,
[02:25.20]said Beth Shapiro, a scientific advisor with the bioscience company.
[02:30.64]She has been studying the dodo for 20 years.
[02:34.68]She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz
[02:39.84]and receives financial support
[02:42.36]from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
[02:45.56]The organization also supports
[02:48.12]The Associated Press' Health and Science Department.
[02:52.88]Shapiro's team plans to study DNA differences
[02:56.64]between the Nicobar pigeon and the dodo
[02:59.96]to understand "what are the genes
[03:02.60]that really make a dodo a dodo," she said.
[03:07.08]The team may then attempt to change Nicobar pigeon cells
[03:11.12]to make them seem like dodo cells.
[03:14.16]It may be possible to put the changed cells
[03:17.96]into developing eggs of other birds,
[03:20.92]such as pigeons or chickens.
[03:24.12]Then the birds might create young
[03:26.68]that could naturally produce dodo eggs, said Shapiro.
[03:31.08]The idea is not yet fully developed.
[03:35.36]Shapiro said animals are a product
[03:37.84]of both their genetics and their environment
[03:41.36]— which has changed a lot since the 1600s.
[03:45.04]She added, "it's not possible to recreate
[03:48.80]a 100% identical copy of something that's gone."
[03:53.76]Other scientists wonder if it is even a good idea
[03:57.96]to attempt to recreate species that have died off.
[04:02.60]They question whether such efforts take attention
[04:05.72]and money away from attempts to save living species.
[04:11.08]There is a real risk "in saying that if we destroy nature,
[04:14.80]we can just put it back together again — because we can't,"
[04:19.04]said Duke University's Stuart Pimm,
[04:21.96]who has no connection with the company.
[04:25.20]"And where on Earth would you put a woolly mammoth,
[04:28.08]other than in a cage?" Pimm said.
[04:31.56]He also said that the environment
[04:33.68]where mammoths lived disappeared long ago.
[04:37.56]Biologists who know about captive breeding programs
[04:41.36]say that it can be difficult for zoo-bred animals to live in the wild.
[04:46.92]Boris Worm is a biologist with the University
[04:50.80]of Dalhousie in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
[04:54.44]He is also not linked to Colossal Biosciences.
[04:59.36]He said animals need to learn from other wild animals of their kind
[05:04.36]— something that dodos and mammoths would not be able to do.
[05:09.40]"Preventing species from going extinct in the first place
[05:13.56]should be our priority, and in most cases, it's a lot cheaper," he said.
[05:19.92]I'm John Russell. 更多听力请访问21VOA.COM
END OF TRACK. "END OF TRACK." The two men bowed. "Whoever was that person you were talking to?" she enquired, as soon as they stood together. The took of triumph faded from her eyes, she had grown worn and weary. The roses were wilting on the walls, the lights were mostly down now. Hetty, looking in to see if anything was wanted, found herself driven away almost fiercely. I only saw Master Jervie once when he called at tea time, The year 1747 was opened by measures of restriction. The House of Lords, offended at the publication of the proceedings of the trial of Lord Lovat, summoned the parties to their bar, committed them to prison, and refused to liberate them till they had pledged themselves not to repeat the offence, and had paid very heavy fees. The consequence of this was that the transactions of the Peers were almost entirely suppressed for nearly thirty years from this time, and we draw our knowledge of them chiefly from notes taken by Horace Walpole and Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. What is still more remarkable, the reports of the House of Commons, being taken by stealth, and on the merest sufferance, are of the most meagre kind, sometimes altogether wanting, and the speeches are given uniformly under fictitious names; for to have attributed to Pitt or Pelham their[112] speeches by name would have brought down on the printers the summary vengeance of the House. Many of the members complained bitterly of this breach of the privileges of Parliament, and of "being put into print by low fellows"; but Pelham had the sense to tolerate them, saying, "Let them alone; they make better speeches for us than we can make for ourselves." Altogether, the House of Commons exhibited the most deplorable aspect that can be conceived. The Ministry had pursued Walpole's system of buying up opponents by place, or pension, or secret service money, till there was no life left in the House. Ministers passed their measures without troubling themselves to say much in their behalf; and the opposition dwindled to Sir John Hinde Cotton, now dismissed from office, and a feeble remnant of Jacobites raised but miserable resistance. In vain the Prince of Wales and the secret instigations of Bolingbroke and Doddington stimulated the spirit of discontent; both Houses had degenerated into most silent and insignificant arenas of very commonplace business. "It certainly will be. Miss Widgeon," answered Maria, with strictly "company manners." "One who has never had a brother exposed to the constant dangers of army life can hardly understand how glad we all feel to have Si snatched from the very jaws of death and brung back to us." "Just plug at 'em as you would at a crow, and then go on your way whistlin'?" persisted Harry. "Hurroo!" echoed Hennessey; "that's the ticket." "Come forward, keeper," continued the baron, "and state how these arrows came into your hands!" "Yes." HoMEJULIA京香2018下载
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