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Cloneable Mammoth Cells Discovered in Russia

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the large-pieces-of-the-past dept.

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."

6 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. interesting... by jearbear · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm just curious how they're going to get a female of an elephant to gestate an organism that doesn't even share the same genetic code of the species, let alone have half of it come from the mother.

  2. In Soviet Russia.. by malakai · · Score: 1, Interesting

    no no, just kidding.

    Seriously though, does any country want herds of 10,000 lbs mammals running around eating 400lbs of vegetation a day? Sounds like some new kind of plague, or the SUV of the animal kingdom energy source. I don't think either of those countries really need to revive that species. As for keeping it in captavity... we all know how well _that_ works. If they reconstitute that species, they better reconstitute it's least powerful predator as well.

    -malakai

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    -Malakai
    A Dragon Lives in my Garage
  3. Tourism Dollars by Radical+Rad · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The Japanese researcher hopes that the resurrected mammoths will live in a sanctuary in an uninhabited area north of the remote, frozen Kamchatka peninsula in Russia's Far East, where present conditions resemble their original habitat.

    I'll bet Russia could really use the eco-tourism money that this would generate. I wouldn't mind a vacation package to see these things up close.

  4. How will it interact with the other animals by PepperedApple · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'll admit I don't know much about Siberia, but I would imagine that there are at least a few other animals up there (The Siberian tiger springs to mind). I wonder how the mammoths will interact with them. Who remembers the Simpsons episode where Bart brought a frog to Australia?

    1. Re:How will it interact with the other animals by trikberg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I would imagine that the interaction would be minimal. The tiger is simply too small to challenge a mammoth, and the mammoth is too slow and clumsy to harm a tiger, unless the tiger attacks. Maybe a mammoth calf could be killed by a tiger, or possibly a bear, but not unless he is separated from the mother.

      Pretty much like the African elephant and lions, I guess. How mammoths affect the vegetation and the habitat of other herbivores is a different matter.

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  5. Humans are part of nature *too*, dammit! by smithmc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Except for the inconvenient little fact that it was humans who wiped out the wooly mammoth. If we hadn't hunted the things into extinction, they would probably survive quite well in areas like Siberia.

    So what? We're a part of nature, too. The mammoths ran up against nature's fair-haired boys (who may or may not have actually been fair-haired), and got their asses handed to them. How's that any different than if some species were driven to extinction by any other means, or by some other species? I'm so tired of this "nature good, humans evil" crap!

    Yes, we have a mean streak a mile wide. Better hope we still have it when the Bugs come for our planet...

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