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DNA of Woolly Mammoth Fully Sequenced
jd writes "Scientists have decoded the mitochondrial DNA of the Woolly Mammoth. According to the article: 'the Mammoth was most closely related to the Asian elephant rather than the African Elephant. The three groups split from a common ancestor about six million years ago, with Asian elephants and mammoths diverging about half a million years later.' This work is tied into efforts by researchers to use DNA to analyze other extinct species, such as the cave bear, the Haast eagle and the American lion. The novel aspect of this latest work is that it involved stitching together almost 50 fragments of mtDNA in order to obtain the sequence as a whole."
It's always good to know that humans are second to mammoths in genetic research :)
DNA? Evolution? Never happened! Mammoths were on the Ark with Noah!
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For the ID kooks out there who are probably speaking in tongues and convulsing on the floor after today's spanking in court I offer an interesting letter to the editor.
Some don't need vaccine
Recent news about the avian flu virus has raised concerns from main street to the White House. There is the possibility, even likelihood, that the virus will mutate into a form that can more easily infect humans.
As the president pointed out, a vaccine cannot be made until this evolution occurs.
This raises the concern that it may be impossible to create enough vaccine fast enough to protect all our citizens. But there is hope.
Gallup polls tell us that up to 45 percent of Americans don't believe in evolution. Since random mutation is the engine of evolution, these same people must believe that the virus cannot mutate.
Therefore, there is no need to waste vaccine on folks who believe there is no possible threat to themselves -- thus leaving a sufficient supply for the rest of us. Perhaps the president, given his doubts about evolution, may wish to demonstrate his leadership by foregoing vaccination.
This approach has added benefits. Polls also tell us that disbelief in evolution is more pronounced among the less educated, the poor and conservatives. If the anti-evolutionists among these groups were to opt out of vaccination then, through immediate deaths and natural selection, we would reduce poverty, raise educational attainment and become a more progressive society.
The title is somewhat misleading as it should be noted that mitochondrial DNA is not genomic DNA from a cells nucleus. It is a much smaller genome from the mitochondrion that evolutionarily is thought to be descended from bacteria and is much easier to sequence from a total work perspective. Although the information that can be extracted from the analysis of mitochondrial DNA can be more informative as to lineage and evolutionary cladistics.
Come on folks, this is junior high biology.....
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Contrary to the title, the Wooly Mammoth DNA has not been fully sequenced. The Mitochondrial DNA has, but that's nowhere near the amount of DNA in the neucleus. So don't worry, we won't be seeing Jurasic park any time soon.
Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
I'm not sure if mammuth sperm would be capable to fertilise elephants.. but could they produce embryos from the dna, and ultimately make those sweet hairy babies with asian elephants?
I wanna have my Furry Park!
Welcome our newly cloned mammoth overlords
Wait, they haven't started cloning them yet?
Too many zeros, not enough ones
...what about the owlbear? Is it the ancestor of both owls and bears, or the missing link between the two?
Remember the plot... somehow they used the DNA sequence of existing lizards and filled in the new sequence to fertilize Dianosaur egg.
:-) I think the scientists must be trying to regenerate a Mammoth out of a current age elephant.
They sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of the Wooly Mammoth, not the actual DNA of the Wooly Mammoth. Mitochondrial DNA is located outside of the cell's nucleus in your cell's mitochondria (power plants). You only inherit your mitochondrial DNA from your mother. It also mutates at a measurable rate, so it is perfect for tracking species across time.
A Fatal OE Exception has occurred, Sig will now reboot.
If we ever want to overthrow them, we can just wax them. I heard it hurts. I saw it in 40-Year-Old Virgin.
Or the fifth. One of them, anyway. I'm pretty sure I submitted the title with mtDNA, not just DNA, but I could have missed that off. Either way, the paragraph of text does specify that it is mitochondrial DNA (which is still DNA - not my fault if someone else thinks nucleic).
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)
I remember in the book, there was something about hammond having created pygmy elephants that could be kept as house pets in order to demonstrate the technology to get further funding or something. but it's been years since i read it, and the movie had precious little to do with the book (although far more than the Lost World movie had to do with the book. Jurassic park III was just offensive).
Human DNA is a mammoth problem, right? Which means mammoth DNA must be a human problem.
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)
Instead of the word pony, you'll hear the whiney phrase "Mommy, Daddy, can I have a fully sequenced Woolly Mammoth for Christmas?"
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
(Except for the nuclear DNA)
Yes, boss. I'm finished with that software. I just have the design and coding left to complete.
mmmm...BBQ mammoth
Saying "DNA of Woolly Mammoth Fully Sequenced" is pretty misleading, the reality is nothing close to that. In fact it's only the mitochondrial DNA which has been sequenced. And while mtDNA is useful for determining when a certain species diverged from another, or whether a certain person shares an ancestor with another, it won't allow for any Jurassic Park typ e scenarios. Mitochondrial DNA doesn't include the vast majority of DNA which actually codes for protiens and such . . .
...mammoth sperm...
Move over, jumbo shrimp. Behold the birth of a new oxymoron!
My insides hurt just thinking about "mammoth sperm".
... diverging half a million years later is based on that "just a theory, not a fact" called evolution. Everyone knows that the earth is really only 6009 years old (that is when the "intelligent designer" made it poof into existence).
as intelligently designed by an intelligent designer, according to the Kansas School Board.
sulli
RTFJ.
How much is the Mitochondrial Count ? Is it higher than Yoda ? Is it higher than Anakin ?
So the force is strong in him but I sense great fear in the Woolly Mammoth , and fear leads to extinction.
They have enough trouble deciding whether BBQ sauce should have ketchup in it or not for pork. Besides, the hairs would singe.
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)
Hmm, that must have been the Big Poof...
Oh well, what the hell...
Those were one of those creatures he forgot.
What a relief. This will bring us one step closer to our goal of identifying mammoth diseases before we lose any treatment options. My prediction: Due to this new research not a single mammoth will die in 2006.
My Blog
would it take to store a human genome's worth of DNA? Are we talking sub-gig if we use SVCD or divx-like encoding?
So where the hell are the clones!! MAKE WITH THE CLONES!!!!!! I want a mini-mammoth (oxymoron) ;)
Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
Original Recipe Flintstones(TM) Wooly Mammoth ribs!
Mmmmmmm........ ribs!
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Right. It's not exactly Jurassic Park, nut good enough for me. When does the mammoth theme park open?
-- Cheers!
Very weird... this story has dissapered from the main page, but it is still accesible via my bookmark. Damn government censors!
Unless cloning has gotten better, that probably should have read: > "I for one, welcome our dodgy, arthritic mammoth overlords." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1741559.stm
Nope that's Elton John
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
it's not a troll... it's a mammoth!
what is the air speed velocity of an unladen elephant?
'Sentence fragment' is also a sentence fragment.
% mkdir
% ls -dF
We have preserved mamoths, and we have elephants that can be artificially inseminated. Now I've heard that just to produce a cloned cat or dog still takes dozens or hundreds of tries, but are researchers close to reducing that number? How soon until mastodons can be reborn and live at a zoo or preserve in Vancouver or Anchorage?
...and step into the real world.
The "owlbear" is a fictional creature. Grow up.
personally, i can't wait until they clone these bad boys so i can have myself some mammoth burgers
I guess so, since Liberachi died...
Oh well, what the hell...
I'm surprised they have it. Out of curiosity, what made you think to look there for genetic sequence data? I would have tried genbank first, or tigr.
ftp://ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/genomes/
I for one welcome our new furry, giant overlords.
Borrrrriiiiiiiiiing! When can I go pet one?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Since we now know how to build a mammoth, the question becomes "how do we DO it?" The trick at this point appears to be to reverse the previous process we just completed... to take a known sequence as a map and to produce intact strands of DNA that corresponds to that sequence. Once that is completed, we already have the technology to place other DNA in an egg and then we can grow our first mammoth!
So, how goes the gene de-sequencing?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA in mitochondria, organelles that live in all the cells in your body. Mitochondria reproduce asexually, separately from the rest of your cell. The mitochondria in your body come from your mother (the egg cell from which you came had mitochondria from your mother, and they reproduced as you gained new cells).
Since they reproduce asexually, your mitochondria should be identical to those of your mother, barring mutation. This is what lets them trace lineages so well with mitochondrial DNA (there's no intermixing of DNA from your mother & father's genes), and also lets them make some statistical guesses as to when two lineages separated - by measuring how much mutative drift there is between the two sets of mitochondrial DNA.
For more information about mitochondria, see the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion
Today's episode of Sesame Street is brought to you by the number 6, and the letters C, G, T, and A.
The novel aspect of this latest work is that it involved stitching together almost 50 fragments of mtDNA in order to obtain the sequence as a whole.
Bah, anyone could do that!
The questions is: how do we know wether we're actually looking at a mammoth instead of something of an elephant-frog-ostrich-bird?
Defining Statistics and Social Research
>And exactly how does this prove macro evolution? All it proves is that if there is sufficient genetic difference between two species, even if reproduction is possible, the offspring may be unfertile.
You should look into ring species. Look for Zimmer's Gulls, which is/are circumpolar. Even though neighbouring varieties are slightly different they can mate and produce ofspring. Except where the ring closes, or actually doesn't.
I think there are a few more. Frogs and snails around mountain tops if i'm not mistaken. And yes this has everything to do with macro evolution which is defined as being at the species level.
The headline shouted "DNA of Woolly Mammoth Fully Sequenced", but then we read "Scientists have decoded the mitochondrial DNA".
So the headline was almost totally incorrect and misleading. The mtDNA is typically about 0.1% of a mammal's total DNA. Sequencing the mtDNA is only about 1000th of "fully sequenced". They have a long, long way to go before a "fully sequenced" claim can be made.
Their achievement is newsworthy enough by itself. There's no reason to exaggerate it so wildly.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
'Macroevolution'.. 'Microevolution'? These words make no sense to me. LIterally they seem completely ludicrous. Perhaps they have some tie-in with your personal mythology about the creation of the universe? I mean, don't you know that the same little steps that allow species to develop better camo (see moths) are the same little steps that lead to whole-sale changes in structure over 100s of millions of years.
The problem is, nobody lives long enough to watch it happen...and creationists seem only to believe things that happen infront of their own stupid faces. But they have no problem believing in an invisble man who created the entire universe and dallies in the lives of humans??!!
One is an extrapolation, the other a fabrication.
Blar.
I was going to say the same thing, but you beat me to it while I was laughing at the comment above about avian flu vaccine.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
I don't really get the point of podcast novels, I'd really rather just download txt and read it.
I can read text at work, I can't really listen to podcasts at work.
Podcast novels without text are like book on tapes without the original book being available.
So would this make Wolly Mammoth the other other other white meat after a bit of cloning?
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
This is described beautifully by Lewis Thomas in his essay, "Lives of the Cell." In it, he points out that complex cells are like carriers for bacteria-- in plants, the chloroplasts; and in animals, the mitochondira. We're just a fancy car to tote around and protect billions of bacteria (not even including the free bacteria in our bellies). The energy they produce (chloroplasts) and release (mitochondria) drive all other life. It's like we're just evolutionary curliques to move forward the evolution of bacteria.
Kinda cool thought, even if it's not perfect.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Stephen J. Gould/Niles Eldredge didn't think gradulism was correct.
So, your statement should be rephrased as: "Sadly nobody but IDers, Stephen J. Gould, and Niles Eldredge claim a difference between micro and macro evolution."
Stephen J. Gould/Niles Eldredge didn't think gradulism was correct.
Punctuated equilibrium is just a form of gradualism. It is thought to occur in small, isolated populations, as selective pressures are high and beneficial mutations do not have far to propagate. Then when the new population is reunited with the larger original population, the original population is rapidly outcompeted, resulting in a perceived discontinuity in the fossil record.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0 _0_0/evoscales_01
This made me chuckle but I do have an objection to the level of school-yard labelling that goes on here. (on any number of issues - no doubt I have participated myself)
In its broadest form ID suggests that life was designed, which in itself does not necessitate any arguement against micro evolution. Of course many ID'ers are the literal 7-day creationists you are insinuating, but clearly not all.
Which is the same kind of intentional misrepresentation most parties are guilty of when our desire to be proven right overcomes our desire to show respect to our fellow (wo)man.
Is that Mr or Mrs ?
Rather than a purely faithful copy, why don't we focus on some incremental improvements and see what benefits emerge? For instance, they are wooly, and they are mammoth, and this makes them good. But maybe if they were WOOLIER or MORE MAMMOTH they'd be ever BETTER.
tone
The article said they were retrieved the mitochondria from bone fragments (so I presume vessels inside the bone must offer effective protection from corruption). I know, however, there have been several cases of frozen mammoth remains being retrieved, including the discovery of a whole or nearly whole mammoth found buried in the ice in Siberia 6-7 years ago.
As others have noted, mitochondria can be useful for looking at lineage but that's a tiny piece of their genetic info. Ever since the blurb in the papers when it was first found and the Discovery channel documentary about removing it from the ice, I haven't heard anything about the studies of the Siberian mammoth. Even a google search was disappointingly sparse on relevant hits. Surely from remains that significant, there must be far more intact DNA than from a few mg of bone fragments.
THe title is completely misleading. Right in the summary it says .."decoded the mitochondrial DNA of..." mitochondrial DNA is a very small repcentage of the total.
Whouldn't it be great if slashdot implemented some kind of bullshit filter.
...but it says later on that the mammoth was in the salad bar. Which makes sense, mammoths being vegetarian.
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)
Maybe that explains the origin of accountants. Stone-age man had to use lossy encoding to fit the data onto the side of the cave wall.
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)
Shouldn't that sig be:
Employed worker of the Department of Redundancy Department
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
"According to your definition, I am an IDer. I believe mostly in evolution,"
An ID'er who believes in evolution? That is like saying a pacifist who believes in violence (or vice versa). Or is it the 'mostly' that accounts for the discrepancy and contradiction in that one sentence?
"although the arguments on both sides cause me to realize it still requires more research as more is discovered, learned, realized, or corrected every day, but I also believe in a God and an afterlife. This, my friend, does not make me "half way there," rather I believe it makes me much more enlightened than you and your ilk. "
Not at all. Try looking at it this way: if someone would believe in the tooth fairy or invisible magical dragons and never-never-land, just as you believe in god and an afterlife, would you then consider such a person more enlightened?
If the answer is no, then why should we consider your equally unsubstantiated belief makes you more enlightened?
There is nothing enlightened in believing imaginary things - and though it can be cute for children (though even that can be disputed) who don't have mastered rational thought yet, it often deserves pity if adults still believe in such notions, and certainly when they let their lives be governed by it.
Don't confuse Punctuated Equilibrium with macro-evolution. The IDers tend to use as macro-evolution to describe a substantial change in a single generation.
;-)
Punctuated Equilibrium, while not gradual, is still across a few thousand generations. Think of it as more of a 'rapid gradualism' than the macro-evolution idea of a sudden eruption of feathers on a surprised looking archeopteric chick so loved of the anti-evolution brigade
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.