Most of Woolly Mammoth Genome Reconstructed

geekmansworld writes "From the Washington Post, 'An international team of scientists has reconstructed more than three-quarters of the genome of the woolly mammoth using DNA extracted from balls of hair, the first time this has been accomplished for an extinct species.' Who wants a pet mammoth?"

Comments

pricetag: $10 million, right now

[circletimessquare]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/science/20mammoth.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

right NOW, we can do this

apparently it would be tedious, but a number of technical hurdles have been overcome lately to the point where this is really conceivable to do, and the talk about doing it isnot theoretical, but practical

1. most recent modern genome decoders don't care that the dna is shredded into pieces
2. encapsulated in keratin (hair), the dna is not so tainted by bacterial dna like it is in bone
3. a new technique allows modifying modern elephant dna 50,000 genomic sites at a time, rather than one by one, so the proper egg can be arrived at after a few generations of reconstruction, implanted in a female elephant, and voila

this can be done, right NOW!

amazing

even more freaky: we can do the same, right now, with neanderthal!

using chimpanzee as a starting point for ethical considerations, we can also, right NOW, bring a neanderthal back to life

that's pretty freaky. these guys wouldn't be dumb. someone would have to explain to the guy that he is not the last of his species, he's an artifically reconstructed clone of a guy who died 50,000 years ago. no one of his kind exists anymore

but we revived a wooly old friend of yours too. here's a spear, happy hunting

just don't eat the dodo
or the quagga
or the irish elk
or the auroch
or the sabretooth though

really really freaky and amazing