Slashdot Mirror
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.)
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.....
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.