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Resurrecting the Mighty Mammoth, Cheaply
somanyrobots writes with an interesting followup in the New York Times to the earlier-reported substantial reconstruction of the woolly mammoth genome: "Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million. The same technology could be applied to any other extinct species from which one can obtain hair, horn, hooves, fur or feathers, and which went extinct within the last 60,000 years, the effective age limit for DNA." (The Washington Post article linked from the earlier post was much more skeptical, calling such an attempt "still firmly the domain of science fiction." The New York Times article, while describing the process in similar terms, also calls attention to recent advances in sequencing DNA, as well as recoding DNA for cloning.)
is today's reality.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
What about the animal? The poor thing will be the only one of its species in existence. No chance of reproduction (unless it's close enough to an elephant to mate), no herd to grow up in, no point to its life other than for us to ooh and aah over.
Just because we can doesn't mean we should.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
The article hints at the possibility of bringing back other species, but doesn't elaborate. We have museum specimens of other extinct species such as the passenger pigeon, Carolina parakeet, and ivory-billed woodpecker, and those are certainly much more recent (all 3 species went extinct within the last century). Doesn't this open up the possibility of bringing back a few of these species, too?
Actually the price should be at least double that, because if they really want to ressurect the species, they need two, a male and a female.
Man just lived and existed, there was no idyllic eden like harmony. change occurs constantly, that ole evolution thing. Where man goes or is, change happens. Same as where these mammoths went (five tons of pachyderm beef can cause some localized disruption, just like elephants today cause deserts eventually by tearing down trees) We fought and killed and caused whoops forest fires and so on, made creeks run dirty from digging clams and mussels on the banks, caused erosion from harvesting tubers, changed the balance of the local flora by starting agriculture, took food from other animals by that same reason, ate the other animals, skinned critters to make our clothes and shelters, all of that stuff. If you mean just living feral as being in harmony, you still can, it's quite possible, just back away from the keyboard and go for it, I did it for several years, was quite a hoot actually. I consider it a large part of my education and what makes me appreciate life better and helped establish my sense of ethics and morals (not to get too schmaltzy about it). Took more than a few skills and some dam' good luck as well, nature plays no favs, you are allowed to screw up *badly* on occasion.
With that said,there are probably way more than a billion people still live close to totally feral around the planet still.
My short report on my "research experiment": The slickest thing in civilization today, one that most folks in the developed world take for granted and don't appreciate near enough, is clean running water from the tap. Everything else is nice, electricity is swell, gadgets are fun, supermarkets rock, but clean running water is *simply great*.
And I'd take a mammoth pair to add to my herd here, just give me year's notice so I can adjust the fencing a little better.....
Actually, given in-breeding, if they wanted to get a viable population going, they would probably need a whole herd.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
Forget rides to the space station or owning an electronic car company... the new must-have for tech multi-millionaires should be having your own herd of resurrected extinct species.
Somebody call Sergey and Larry and see if they can spare $10mm. Just don't fly the 767 for a few weeks and that'll save enough for the effort.
Then call Elon Musk and see if he wants to recreate the dodo or the Tasmanian tiger.
Or we make it trendy for celebrities -- forget adopting babies from Africa, the new trend is adopting and recreating extinct species! Get Angelina on board and everyone else will follow.
> The Washington Post wouldn't know sci-fi if it came up and slapped them in the face...
"Sci-fi" they know: they review it in their movie section. Science fiction, on the other hand, is likely to give them some trouble. It involves science, a subject utterly opaque to journalism majors.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The major problem with a mammoth would be that there would be nobody (as in other mammoths) to raise it. There is a fair chance they worked like elephants. Unless a herd of elephants accepted it (possible but unlikely), you'd end up with a completely neurotic animal that would have no social clues whatsoever.
I'm not sure you can recreate a social species. They have to learn their social structures from somewhere. They won't make them up.
Putting human kids in the wild on their own hoping them to grow up as well rounded people is naive, the same is true (in a different way) of elephants and presumably mammoths.
They should get an ethologist. Or clone something easier.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
'There is a huge moral issue here, and the idea of 'resurrecting any species' especially a mammal would not pass an ethics board.'
Akira Iritani, who is chairman of the genetic engineering department at Kinki University in Japan and a member of the Mammoth Creation Project seems to have no problem with his ethics board.
Nah, it'd probably be alright as long as you had paying attention to it and taking care of it. The animal would learn social behaviors from its keepers, the same way that dogs and cats learn behavior from each other and humans when they're brought into a social situation at a young age, only it's a little bit stranger.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
The major problem with a mammoth would be that there would be nobody (as in other mammoths) to raise it. There is a fair chance they worked like elephants. Unless a herd of elephants accepted it (possible but unlikely), you'd end up with a completely neurotic animal that would have no social clues whatsoever.
I don't really see your problem, that really shouldn't alter the taste very much.
Cinnabananamammoth FTW.
Property is theft.
I don't know. Is it tasty?
If it tastes good, its survival is assured.