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摘要

It is 2050 and only 30 cheetahs are left in the world. Tireless efforts to help the animals reproduce in the wild have failed and the species could soon die out. But there is a lifeline, and it's in the freezer. Scientists turn to thousands of cell samples collected from cheetahs over the years since 2002, and one by one each of these animals is reincarnated with the help of cloning. Welcome to the future of conservation. This vision is anything but fantastical. If all else fails - such as habitat preservation or breeding programmes - cloning could be rolled out as a last resort to save a species on the brink of extinction. The first endangered animal to be cloned was an ox-like beast called a gaur, native to India and parts of Asia, which was born in 2001. A handful of others have followed. Scientists are even getting close to cloning a species that is already extinct.