Prof. Paul Hebert of the University of Guelph was featured on a recent segment of CTV’s Canada AM in their Canadians on the Cutting Edge series. Click here to view the segment. There has been a massive amount of press coverage of DNA barcoding over the past few years, and you can see more at the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding.
By the way, DNA barcoding has absolutely nothing to do with cloning, dinosaurs, or Jurassic Park. But I guess the link is irresistible to reporters whenever DNA is mentioned in any context. [Sigh].
An interesting little piece…
Dr. Hebert is quite a good public speaker, in my opinion. I won’t blame him for the weird Jurassic Park non-sequitor, or the blithely-mentioned figure of 10 million species on Earth. Current estimates are around 1.8 million described species, right? I’ve seen estimates for total Earth biodiversity ranging from about 5 million up to 100 million. Where did they get their 10 million estimate?
Also, the mention of cloning dinosaurs “using DNA” brings to mind the question: could an organism be cloned without using DNA? How odd.