Cloneable Mammoth Cells Discovered in Russia

orthogonal writes "Animal Planet reports, in this article, that 'Russian scientists said Wednesday that they've found living cells in a frozen ice-age mammoth' which could be cloned, and gestated in an elephant. I see a new Republican mascot in this."

Comments

Re:interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't figure out what you don't understand. It's a standard practice now. They take an elephant egg, remove the DNA, put in Mammoth DNA, sprinkle some magic, and implant the egg in a female elephant. If you want more details, look up a sheap called Dolly.

Of course the real problem is that the DNA is not likely to be in very good shape. I bet 100% of the clones would die before birth.

Darwin must be rolling in his grave.

[gklinger]

I can see the headlines now...

"Escaped mammoth goes on rampage, destroys Burger King. 18 injured, 4 dead."

Seriously though, I don't think this is a good idea. What possible purpose (save entertainment value) could be served by reviving a long extinct species? (A species which has been long extinct for a reason, I might add.)

I'm a firm believer in the Darwinian process and sometimes a little extinction is a good thing. Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should.

I would be interested in hearing people's thoughts on this subject and if a reasonably intelligent discussion breaks out, I'll expound on my thinking.

Re:Darwin must be rolling in his grave.

[cookie_cutter]

very few creatures have any chance of survival once their genetic pool gets constricted to a few hundred creatures.

It depends how many hundreds. This relates to a concept called minimum viable population size. According to a site about elephant conservation:

Genetic theorists believe that at least 500 breeding animals [elephants] are needed to ensure long-term survival.

Other species seem to be able to get around with much smaller populations, less than a hundred in some cases.

Re:interesting...

[Simon Field]

I don't think that's what he didn't understand.

I think he hadn't seen Scientific American, or any of the other coverage.