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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.)
Anyone got some amber they want to sell?
-or-
Yo mamma so fat, it'd cost 10 billion to clone her!
We may well need an army of Mammoths to fight the mutant tool-equipped space spiders from that other earlier story. $10 million is a small price to pay to save humanity from the giant space webs.
It really just sounds like you're saying we need more than one.
Well, the first few we resurrect will be interesting and a tourist attraction and all that, but once the public is used to them there has to be a practical application.
Mammoth Burgers sound good to me :)
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Mammoth ribs :)
*goes back to watching Flintstones*
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
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.
And yet would the mammoth's life experiences be any different from those of millions of other animals being kept as pets already? It would certainly have a much longer and healthier life than that of your average cow, chicken, or lab rat....
I think your sympathies are misplaced.
As for whether there would be a "point" to its life... it would be a significant scientific and technological milestone. That's more "point" than most domesticated animals have.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
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?
is, from the same story, relegated to second interest, for some reason, the idea of resurrecting a neanderthal, the same way as the woolly mammoth. using chimpanzee as the starting cell lineage rather than human, for ethical considerations of course
but this guy won't be dumb. somebody will have to explain to him he's not the last of his kind... he is the 50,000 year old cloned reconstruction of his kind
weird, lonely, and possible on our lifetime
very cool, very freaky
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Of course that's fascinating, but what would they do with a mammoth? Polar bears are becoming endangered because of rising temperatures and mammoths have disappeared, supposedly because the climate was too warm. They'll have to build a large freezer to keep the beast alive--Jurassic Park meets Frosty the Snowman--or they might not find a place cold enough on Earth for that purpose.
What about the Dodo? Any bits left?
That's a strange coincidence they're talking about this JP-like experiment a few weeks after Michael Crichton's death. Posthumous humour?
This is Slashdot; creatures with no chance of reproducing are par for the course here, I don't see why another one is so morally outrageous, especially one that's slimmer and less hairy than the average Linux hacker.
Blank until
It's far from certain that mammoth died out simply from climate change. Take a look at this link: http://packrat.aml.arizona.edu/Journal/v37n1/vartanyan.html Mammoth survived thousands of years beyond what most people think, into historic times (1700 b.c) It was a place that man didn't reach (hmmm...coincidence?), but Wrangel Island was too small to support a large population of them. It seems that wherever man went, large animals encountered "climate change". I don't doubt that climate was an issue, but nor do I doubt that man was either.
His post assumes that we wouldn't try to establish a breeding population. If we plan on bringing back an extinct species, what moral obligation do we have to prevent its extinction when the only specimen dies? Or is it okay, since our world has moved on since the last mammoth lived? If scientists make one, should we make more and restore a population? Would today's world be a good environment for a wild population or not? Would our creations be forever destined to live in zoos?
If we create a breeding population, how do we ensure genetic diversity? I am not a bioengineer, and have no way of knowing if diversity is already included in their method (taking a living elephant's skin cell and slowly reshuffling the DNA from elephant to mammoth) by simply using cells from different donor elephants for making each new mammoth. I guess that would depend on how reshuffled the DNA gets in the process of injecting new sequences.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Especially if they taste good!!
Hell, down here in southern LA, if one of those things shows up, there's bound to be a Cajun fix an etouffee out of it. People down here will eat anything that doesn't eat them first....and make it taste good!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Stephen Baxter's Behemoth is an omnibus of three books which deal with mammoths. The third book is actually about mammoths being genetically engineered back into existence, and there is actually one individual who is halfway between elephant and mammoth. Very cool books.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Because most amputees would probably not want their missing limbs replaced with mammoth legs?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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.....
why can't we just combine Hendrix's DNA with the Mammoth's?
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.
What about the Dodo? Any bits left?
Save the dodo, extinct the coelacanth.
-- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I feel sad at a zoo cause you can't get at the tasty ones.
Why bother
Look what we did for the American Bison, I mean they are tasty and all but we still stopped at the last minute. Now everyone can have buffalo steaks if they want one. Why not bring 'em back and farm them for food. We used them for that once and these things produce a whole lot more meat than buffalo.
Why bother
> Why would you think I'm proposing fusing human and mammoth and giving humans hairy legs?
Because I see no other possible connection with this story?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
bring Michael Crichton back! ... man that post anonymously button looks pretty good right now... oh well
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
Yippee - I never did get my damn pony.
If one is made, would it then be considered an endangered species?
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs there was an attempt to recreate the extinct species of cow called an Auroch. The idea was to identify currently existing cattle that had partial Auroch ancestry and breed them, selecting for Auroch characteristics. Essentially you were building a gene pool that contained all the necessary genes mixed in with others, running everything through a filter and trying to just get the ones you wanted. They were partially successful
Testicles?
Or the body of the guy who tried to remove them from the mammoth?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
"limb" was a euphemism - he's not talking about legs.
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.
"Making" mammoths would give us the ability to.. umm... flavor them.
Buttery mammoth, Bananamammoth, Cinnamammoth, Fruity mammoth, Orange mammoth, Pear mammoth, Pineapple mammoth, Cotton candy mammoth, Wintergreen mammoth, Bitter almond mammoth, Vanilla mammoth with Swiss Mocha Chips & Blueberry Swirl, Chocolate mammoth with Chocolate Covered Coconut Bits & Marshmallow Swirl...
And that would be just the beginning.
I can't wait for the streets to be illuminated by phosphorescent, minty flavored, mini-mammoths.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
No, no, it's one velociraptor per child, haven't you heard???
how long until
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.