The current issue of National Georgraphic magazine is dedicated to the question of reversing extinction. It asks: Can we bring back lost species through cloning, whether those species were lost last year or thousands of years ago?

It's a Jurassic Park-esque fantasy brought to life, as scientists work to revive lost species and commercial interests examine their progress for hope of profit.

Ron Medor of MinnPost.com takes a broad view in an article published today:

Suddenly, "de-extinction" is all the rage.

"Reviving Extinct Species" is the cover subject in the current National Geographic, which tells us that restoring creatures like the woolly mammoth to the earth "is no longer a fantasy" — and then asks, "Is it a good idea?"

Not coincidentally, a special TEDx Conference took place last Friday at National Geographic's headquarters in Washington, sponsored jointly by the Geographic, the TED organization and an outfit called Revive & Restore, which thinks resurrection biology through gene-splicing and cloning is not only a good idea but a cool one, a great one, whose time has come at last.

In the words of Revive & Restore co-founder Stewart Brand, longtime big thinker on environmental stuff, the TED presentations constituted "the first public discussion of something that's been brewing for a year or two, which is the possibility of bringing back extinct species for real, not in fiction this time."

In National Geographic, science writer Ed Yong examines the progress being made in resurrecting the southern gastric brooding frog, an amphibian that uses its stomach for a womb and vomits its young, which has been extinct for almost 30 years:

Two years ago, Mike Archer from the University of New South Wales looked down a microscope and saw that a single fertilised frog egg had divided in two. Then, it did it again. And again. Eventually, the egg produced an embryo containing hundreds of cells.

“There were a lot of hi-fives going around the laboratory,” says Archer.

This might seem like an over-reaction. After all, millions of frog eggs divide into embryos every day, as they have done since before dinosaurs walked the earth. But this egg was special. Archer’s team of scientists had loaded it with the DNA of the southern gastric brooding frog—a bizarre creature that has been extinct for almost 30 years.

The fact that it started to grow into an embryo was a big deal. The fact that it never went further was disappointing, but not unexpected. This is cutting-edge science—cloning techniques put to the purpose of resurrection.

Archer’s goal is simple: To bring the extinct gastric brooding frog back from oblivion and, in doing so, provide hope for the hundreds of other frogs that are heading that way. Getting the embryo was a milestone and Archer is buoyantly optimistic that he’ll cross the finish line soon. Lazarus, he says, will rise again.

Read more on "de-extinction" from National Geographic here.