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Ancient Cave Bear DNA Extracted and Decoded
diamond writes "The BBC reports that 'scientists have extracted and decoded the DNA of a cave bear that died 40,000 years ago.' The sequencing technique could also work for Neanderthals. However, 'the idea of obtaining DNA from dinosaurs, depicted in the film Jurassic Park, remains science fiction.' Also reported by Nature Magazine."
Now we won't have too wait (perhaps) to find sentient non human intelligences, all we have to do is recreate them. Not that neanderthal would have much to say but hey hes non human! We could do those Flores tiny people too they were pretty recent. All sorts of possibilities
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Man, i know it is friday afternoon... I read that as Ancient Cave Beer and got thirsty... sounds delicious!
http://www.pterrys.com
Yes, what a shame. Unfortunately because of limitations with current technology and scientific knowledge, we won't be able to reproduce a race of ancient evil uber bears bent on destroying humans and swiping pic-a-nic baskets.
Cue the "I welcome our new Ancient Bear Overlords" comments.....
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
on trying to genetically engineer the perfect linebacker
*rubs eyes*
...until this becomes another SciFi monster movie of the week?
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I believe it's still a way to go from sequencing (parts) of the DNA of an ancient animal to recreating it
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
[Malcolm walks up to a huge mound of dino-droppings]
Dr. Ian Malcolm: That is one big pile of shit.
I, for one, welcome our new ancient bear overlords.
Unless they get genetically engineered to defeat me in a real-life King of Iron Fist Tournament or something. Or take my picnic baskets.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Now, we just need to combine the two! Neanderthal bears!
... what?
the idea of obtaining DNA from dinosaurs, depicted in the film Jurassic Park, remains science fiction.
Can someone explain this further? What exactly about obtaining DNA from dinosaurs as depicted in Jurasic Park is "science fiction"?
I mean, for one thing, they didn't obtain the DNA from dinosaurs. They obtained (as I recall) dinosaur DNA from a mosquito that was preserved in amber. What exactly is science fiction about obtaining DNA from a very-well preserved creature encased in something like amber?
Just because it hasn't been done doesn't mean it isn't realistic.
The team determined that nearly 6% of the sequences analysed from one of their animal samples belonged to ancient bear: an unexpectedly large amount. The rest of the DNA probably came from soil microbes or the palaeontologists handling the bones, the team says.
So six percent of the sample was cave bear. How much of the entire cave bear DAN-map was recovered? This sounds much less impressive than at first blush. Can anyone with access to the whole study and the abilty to comprehend it tell us how useful/significant this DNA really is?
Never say we won't get DNA from dinosaurs. Just recently some scientists uncoverered a dinosaur bone that wasn't completely fossilized: it was so big that they couldn't transport it, so they cut it in half and found actual flesh in the center! I couldn't find it on google news in 5 seconds, but does anybody else remember this? I think there was a reason they couldn't extract any DNA from this guy, but stranger things have happened. Of course, DNA an entire being does not make, so we won't be able to actually make a living breathing dinosaur but we all know what would happen if we did!
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Neanderthals... Ancient Cave bears...
These people need to stop reading old books and get back to science.
Unless they're willing to put both groups in a room and lock the door.
http://www.aaplblog.com/ - News about Apple Inc.
. . . and found it to be Winnie the Pooh's ancient ancestor.
If this is going to work, scientists will need copies of both the DNA in the nucleus AND mitochondria (and ways to synthesize the nucleus and mitochondria of the target organism). Implanting a neanderthal nucleus in a human (or any other) kind of egg will not necessarily create a pure neanderthal clone (we might even need to clone the cytoplasmic contents). A study of cloning fish across species boundaries showed that some very basic physical characteristics (e.g., the number of vertebra in the backbone) were controlled by the mitochondria or cytoplasm of the egg, not by the genes in the nucleus.
It's amazing that they can reconstruct the DNA of long-dead creatures but its also clear that nuclear DNA is not the only information-carrying object in biological organisms.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
When translated it said 'I'm smarter then the average neanderthal Boo-boo'
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Could I give them DNA have them decode it, and then tell me what it was?
They know what it is going into the decoding... but I'm just so fascinated by the technology that I wonder if they can extrapolate the species from just the DNA too.
These guys are f'ing cool. This really is the frontier here on earth for me.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Why would Neanderthals want to build a cave bear?
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
If they could only extract the DNA of my Uncle Gene and make a clone of him, I could get back that $200 he owed me. Come on brainiacs, lets get some science going on and make me some cash! Bling bling!
Peace out, homies.
I'd like to have the sequence for that "rip peoples face off with massive claws" personality trait.
>
>Now, we just need to combine the two! Neanderthal bears!
Og homo sapiens sapiens. Og not have to outrun homo sapiens neanderthalis. Og only have to outrun cave bear. Og wise. Great-great-gr[skipping a bit]eat-grandchildren Og now see just how wise.
Further digging for bear fossils revealed a shovel, a forest ranger hat, and a partial parchement fragment with the words:
"On.y y.. ca.. p.even. f.rest fir.s"
Antropologists are currently looking for assistance in decoding the parchement.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4602739.stm
This makes me wonder if we could even "build" a modern Human from a genetic blueprint. Is it possible to physically predict something's appearance from its DNA?
Don't we all know by now that this is impossible?
The Earth is around 5000 years old.These guys are the devil's pawns and work only to Deceive you!
Cave bears are tricks of the Devil to "test your faith"!
La-de-freaking-duh. Dinosaur DNA is more than three orders of magnitude older than neanderthal. A totally different probelm of acquisition and re-sequencing.
Read The Science of Jurassic Park: And the Lost World Or, How to Build a Dinosaur by Rob Desalle, David Lindley. Excellent breakdown of the tasks involved. Two bucks on Amazon.
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
Was I the only one who misread the title as that?
pauly shore discovered a frozen caveman back about 13 years ago and even dethawed him and brought him back to life! These guys only found cave bear DNA...lame.
Encino Man
Summary:
Stoney and Dave find a caveman (Link) trapped in ice, thaw him out, and show him around town. Although Link is slow to catch on to basic concepts of 20th century life, he has no trouble impressing all the girls and helping Stoney and Dave find the coolness they've been searching for.
But there was some ancient cave beer found just recently! (Well, sort of.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03dinosa ur.html
now if you tell me that dna will degrade over 70 million years and be unrecoverable, then i will believe you
but if you also tell me that they can recover soft tissue with capillaries and cells visible from 70 million years ago, i wouldn't believe you
but that's what they did
so now i don't know what to believe... isn't some sort of t. rex dna recovery possible after all then? granted, it would be fragmented, but if we are talking dessicated soft tissue, can't the fragments be recovered in some sort of context that might make reconstruction possible?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I find it funny that the last sent. was about repudiating Jurassic Park. In recent time, they have found sequencable DNA in fossils.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you can get enough whole DNA, you could at least seriously think about putting it into an egg and gestating another animal. But in the current climate of hysteria over cloning, you can't say that out loud or the whackos will be all over you.
If it isn't at least thinkable, why are they denying it is possible? Because they know it is a conclusion people will jump to. The creation process may be difficult and error-prone, but it isn't outside the realm of possibility, as Dolly the shppe would tell you if she were alive (and had a working vocal system).
Besides, they don't want to spoil the surprise when the pre-historic animals inevitably escape from their foolproof enclosures.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
They have found DNA within fossils. i.e. the bone marrow still contains cells.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If cave men start getting cloned and then raised to be (somewhat) productive members of society, I fear the gene pool of the human race would be set back should he/she deside to have children. Evolution decided those genes are not worthy, why inject obsolete DNA into our race?
Life is not for the lazy.
Surprising.
It sounds to me like 6% of the DNA they analyzed was cave-bear DNA, and the rest was other DNA. That's not to be confused with 6% of a single DNA strand was cave bear, but 6% of the total number of samples.
Oh man, this could be bad. What if that was Satan Pooh and now he's coming back to harvest our mortal souls?
-- Look, we cloned an Ancient Cave Bear!
-- Ha! We did even better: we cloned an Ancient Neanderthal!
-- Growl! Roarr!
-- Ugh! Kriga! Bor! Aiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...
-- Munch, munch, chomp, chomp...
-- *Sigh*... At least, we now know what killed the Neanderthals...
(end of joke)
As a side note, someone is really bad at counting...
Slow Down Cowboy!
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One of the tenets of dismissing evolution is that cavemen are just retarded humans, or guys that were based in a few too many times. If thier DNA is shown to be different, won't that proove they are a different species, thus showing that there are in fact multiple branches of humans? What does the bible say about cave men, I wonder? Actually, I guess it doesn't matter. You can't fight creationism with science. Someone will come right back with "those were bad humans, Satan twisted their DNA, and they all drowned in the flood!"
Da Bears.
Will they also clone a few hundred Daryl Hannah's to go along with these bears if they manage to recreate them?
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
the bits of dinosaur flesh that had been found somewhere? They were still pliable and had moisture apparently. It sounds like the flesh would have been frozen for millions of years. Wouldn't something like that have more usable DNA than a fossil?
i thought it said 'care bear' instead of cave bear. I didnt know they could extract dna from fluff filled bears full of love...
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
Cavement aren't retarded humans... they are just people who lived in caves. You will see some different DNA in today's culture, that's just the way reproduction works. For example, a man with light skin and a woman with dark skin could have several things different in the DNA. However, neither is better than the other! Each is just different.
All the bible really says about cavemen is that some men lived in caves. Based on context, they weren't really any different.
Captain Caaaaaave Beaaaaar!
By a LOT. Wow, what a loser.
I'd rather get some DNA from Daryl Hannah in that one cave bear movie and clone her for my own naughty purposes...
will look just like Daryl Hannah.
Clan of the Cave Bear http://imdb.com/title/tt0090848/
Only those who have built their homes on ancient bearial grounds.
Let's say that there are a million unstable points along the DNA chain that are horribly unstable, and that you'll lose one such molecule on average once a day, in a given cell. Can you recover enough to rebuild an animal, after 200 million years?
Maybe. It depends on the number of cells you have, across all samples, and the exact distribution of the decay. Given the numbers above, after 200 million years, you'd lose 73 billion such molecules. Obviously, if a single cell had only one strand of DNA, and you only had one cell to work with, all the unstable molecules would have long-since vanished.
But let's take a field filled with wooly mammoths, frozen and virtually intact. You've probably got a few hundred billion cells you can usefully with. Each cell probably has a few hundred copies of nucleic DNA in it, and each copy has two strands - each strand the chemical mirror of the opposing one, so you can deduce one from the other.
At this point, the numbers are much more in your favour. You'd need to do a LOT of rebuilding, but statistically speaking, there's an excellent chance that at least one example of each segment, somewhere to be found, and probably many - giving you a good idea of the range.
T. Rex is harder, because you've only the inside of the bones, and there aren't many T. Rex bones known to exist. You also won't get museums willing to cut them open, to see if there's any new information inside, as it's only speculative that there IS anything inside, and even if there is, it is totally pot-luck as to whether there's anything new to be learned.
However, it is not impossible. Improbable, but definitely not impossible. It helps that we now know that birds and dinosaurs have a common ancestor - or that birds descended from dinosaurs. Exactly what the relationship is isn't 100% clear. But it isn't needed. What you do is you find the patterns that are common to ALL birds AND to anything else from that family tree that still survives. What you will get is a good chunk of what is likely to have been present in dinosaurs.
It will only be genetically stable molecules that you'll get by this gigantic diff -u process, but genetically unstable is not necessarily the same as chemically unstable when undergoing active decay. You may be able to fill in gaps, even when the original samples aren't available.
The main problem is the scale that this would need to be done over. We are talking mapping millions, if not billions, of DNA strands, in an effort to build a composite picture. There aren't billions of geneticists in the world, which means that you couldn't do all this at once. It would take a long time, and require most of the available manpower, which (because of supply and demand) would be hyper-expensive. You'd also need to crypogenically store all samples not yet processed, with an unbelievably sophisticated indexing system to make sense of the storage.
Ok, so it would be prohibitive, cost-wise. Still not impossible, just not feasable. That's an important distinction, as one cannot be done at all, the other is merely something we CHOOSE not to do, because we don't want to invest the resources needed.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
or else we can inject ancient cave bear dna into an ancient cave bear egg.
HD Trailers
This is cool stuff, no doubt. I doubt that we'll be seeing cloned cave bears or clones of Daryl Hannah running amok. The DNA will still be useful for non-cloning applications.
You too can be fossilized
Fact or fiction?
From TFA:
scientists have extracted and decoded the DNA of a cave bear that died 40,000 years ago.
or does Crichton have to write the book first?
Tag lost or not installed.
No one has stayed year-round on the island since 1954
If this bear had so many "Mitochondria" then what's the possibility that someone might consider genetically recreating them and training them as Jedi?
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
"However, 'the idea of obtaining DNA from dinosaurs, depicted in the film Jurassic Park, remains science fiction.' "
3 5.500
i te=http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns%3Fid=dn7 195 )
If the scienties don't even READ scientific publications and state that, what of their current 'research.' They almost HAVE dino DNA. From the March 2005 articles, it looks really close. It is like saying the day before the Polio vaccine was tried "it is science fiction that it will work." It is close:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg186249
http://geology.about.com/b/a/156358.htm
(different link for above http://geology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?s
FTFA:
"In hundreds or thousands of years from now, we may have advanced our technology so we can create creatures from DNA sequence information," Dr Eddy Rubin, director of the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California, told the BBC News website.
This is remarkably short-sighted for someone in his position. I'd say a few decades at most, given our current rate of advancement in understanding genetics. IIRC the human genome was sequenced in less than half the time originally estimated.
-Nano.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Combine that with the current bear DNA, and we have a MARKETABLE PRODUCT!!! Contains 6% authentic Cave-Bear!
I for one want to taste them.