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South Korean Scientists Prepare To Clone Wooly Mammoth
An anonymous reader writes "Last year Russian researchers discovered a well-preserved mammoth thigh bone and announced plans to clone a mammoth from the bone marrow within — and they just signed a deal with South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation to bring the project to fruition. The Sooam scientists plan to implant the nucleus of a woolly mammoth cell into an elephant egg in order to to create a mammoth embryo, which would then be placed in an elephant womb. 'This will be a really tough job,' Soaam reasearcher Hwang In-Sung said, 'but we believe it is possible because our institute is good at cloning animals.'" Not to be confused with a similar mammoth effort at mammoth-cloning at Kyoto University.
Knowing the Koreans they will be turning out a million units a year starting in 2014.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It will be set in our times and the main character will be the cloned wooly mammoth.
Forget their nuclear capabilities. We now have a bigger problem.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
After that, they'll start producing mini-mammoths - great as Service Animals.
Transition to The Flintstones, 3% complete.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Tweak the hair-growth and tusk-growth genes on an Indian elephant and it will be close enough.
Have we learned nothing from the Supreme Scientist?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-suk#South_Korean_government.27s_involvement_in_the_scandal
import and pirate Jurassic Park??
Next we'll need to genetically engineer giants to herd these mammoths...
But they'll come with a five year contract with rates escalating based on the number and size of mammals consumed each month.
This is the advance we've been waiting for.... the one that will finally make kink-spring energy storage practical.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The most important question, will it blend?
http://www.willitblend.com/
This can only end well.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
So I'm thinking the poor thing is just going to get overheated, give up, and die like the rest of his kind did. Korean short ribs anyone?
Nooooo !!
Until they figure out that mammoths are assholes and that there is another reason they are extinct.
Knowing the Koreans they will be turning out a million units a year starting in 2014.
I will FINALLY be able to get those giant, car tipping Bar-B-Que ribs Fred Flintstone caused me to lust after for so very long!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
...Night At The Museum jokes....
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
the elephant might go extinct like the rhino due to poachers. At least we'll have mammoths. >.>
I guess the optimist would go,"If we have the tech to do it for mammoths, we can get back other extinct life forms."
God spoke to me
I'm genuinely surprised nobody has yet to pose for an Insightful mod by quoting Jeff Goldblum.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
How well can an elephant's womb support an animal of a different species? Even human babies born to human mothers are in danger if something as simple as the mother's Rh factor is different than the baby's. Surely implanting an animal of one species into a completely different species will run into problems with rejection?
So what's (who's) next?
I actually wrote a screenplay with the following conceit:
Who's the MOST INFLUENTIAL person in human history? Think MORE than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Einstein, Gandhi, etc.
Who is the ONE individual who's essence (or what makes Him special) is inextricably tied up in their DNA? I mean just cloning Einstein from his DNA will not guarantee you another, well, Einstein (though he's likely to be pretty smart). Likewise, "Boys from Brazil" notwithstanding cloning Hitler would not necessarily get you an evil dictator; you're just as likely to get a (bad) artist.
This is one and the same person: Jesus Christ. Of course this idea has been bandied about for a long time.
However,, with the technology rapidly approaching to make this a reality (from stereotypically the shroud of Turin or His less well known preserved foreskin) the question becomes WHO would REALISTICALLY do such a thing? No right minded government would do so because it would fear the wrath of its citizens (and the condemnation of most other countries). Likewise no large institution or very wealthy individual would do so fearing public opprobrium. And it will be a few more decades before the technology becomes cheap enough for the average crazy person to do.
The key is "right minded". My idea is that there is ONE person in the world who, as economists like to say, is both "willing and able" to do such a thing. The country he leads has shown itself capable, over the decades, of pursuing highly technical large scale projects against the condemnation of the ENTIRE WORLD. Sanctions, threats of war, starvation of their population, NOTHING has dissuaded them from achieving their goal.
I'm talking about N. Korea of course and Kim Jong-Un.
So he's got the bomb, now what? Not only are sanctions making life miserable but the increasing sophistication of anti-missile defenses is making his weapon of diminishing value. (You know, "Star Wars" might not have been practical against a global all-out nuclear attack using 1980s technology but it will probably work against a few primitive warheads using 2010 tech). So the only thing that keeps him in power, the ability to defy the west, is diminishing. Sounds like time for a new threat!
That's where HE comes in. A cloned Christ would provide Kim Jong-Un with several interesting opportunities. He could threaten the (religious) West with crucifying him AGAIN or merely making Him his slave. Or perhaps he could raise him as his son and demand that the world's Christians bow down to him. Or (IF!) the reborn Christ truly has godlike powers, he could rule the world!
Or he could do all these things using an army of Christ clones.
That's the basic idea behind my COPYRIGHTED screenplay "GodSon". So please don't copy this particular idea ;) (There are also some interesting religious questions about whether or not he would be considered the son of God but that's outside the scope of this post). Anyway, do you like it? Do you think I should get it kickstarted? :)
Well this post probably going to be modded way down but the bigger problem is I'm probably going to hell. :(. (Unless God has a god-sized sense of humor).
I'm not sure how much I trust any scientist that thinks elephants are born out of eggs....
( I keed, I keed )
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
There's, uh, another example. See, here I am now, by myself, uh, talking to myself. That's... that's Chaos Theory.
There was an episode of Star Trek: TNG that dealt with this subject. The Klingon's counterpart to Christ was cloned and used as a political puppet. You should watch the episode and see how it plays out. I think that would represent the best-case scenario when good intentions are involved. With less-than-honorable intentions, the whole thing would likely play out in a much less spectacular fashion.
hmm this is interesting but i think you should do this:
you should visit this site SCIMAD
There really isn't any compelling evidence that there ever was such a person, let alone DNA.
Wooly mammoths are built for cool, dry weather: the opposite of S. Korea. I hope they move it if successful.
Table-ized A.I.
Here's what would happen if you cloned Jesus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbcr-SQ-gEY
Table-ized A.I.
A hint: One of the ways any potential fibancer of tour screeplay will asgsess whether or not they want to work on it is by how professionally you present yourself. With this in mind, remember that:
1. pros don't stress about copyright. they know that only copyright trolls mention it too loudly.
2. at least in the us, they register their work with the wga
3. they can present the core ouf their idea quickly, prhaps in 100 words or so, rather than rambling about it.
I'm not sure about kickstarter, but believe you need to be as professuonal there - if not more so - than wgen submitting to hollywood.
Forget their nuclear capabilities. We now have a bigger problem
How long before the North deploys oliphants at the border to counter the mammoth threat?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
On an aside, fuck the rhino. If the countries that have them can't preserve them, the world doesn't deserve them. If Chinese men can only get it up by eating rhino horn and tiger dong, I hope they enjoy their limp penises in a couple of decades, because that's all they're going to have left.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You think we care about copyright here? ;)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
doesn't mean it's a GOOD one.
Doesn't necessarily mean it's a BAD one either, but I remain cynical just the same.
Are you joking, or are you just that incredibly uneducated?
While plenty of people may dispute the deity of Jesus Christ, there's no shortage of historical documentation that he existed, and had a major influence on society at the time. I'm not just talking about the Bible, either. There were many who witnessed his speaking and the things he did and wrote about him... Jews, Greeks, Romans, many of them did not believe he was the Christ, but they still wrote about him.
To say that there's no compelling evidence that there ever was such a person as Jesus Christ is similar to saying there's no compelling evidence that there ever was such a person as George Washington, except that there's probably MORE evidence for the existence of Jesus.
Now, it's true, I very strongly doubt you'll ever find his DNA.
Except that his shroud, et al, have been conclusively proven to not date to Jesus' lifetime.Also your wall of text is neither funny, nor interesting, and contains gross factual and intellectual problems.
...soon to appear on PBS as a live-action show!
(with narration by David Macaulay, natch)
coding is life
But wouldn't it be cool if they made a clone based on DNA fragment found in the shroud of Turin and it turned out to be a complete idiot?
Now, it's true, I very strongly doubt you'll ever find his DNA.
There is plenty of His DNA on the rim of the Holy Grail. The CSI/NCIS folks always use this trick when offering a suspect a cup of coffee.
And the sweaty Shroud of Turing is dripping with DNA from Holy Secretions.
And there is even dried Holy Blood on the Holy Lance used by Tony Soprano's ancestors to extort protection money from Jesus, while he was on the cross.
And finally, most Christian Churches pass around DNA samples of His Body and Blood during church services, where they are consumed by members.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
While plenty of people may dispute the deity of Jesus Christ, there's no shortage of historical documentation that he existed, and had a major influence on society at the time
Citation needed?
Because actually, there isn't... Around that time there were plenty of Jewish sects and messiah-type figures running around in that part of the world, so the figure Jesus is undoubtedly based on one or more of them, but there is actually virtually no "evidence" of the existence of one Jesus of Nasareth for which the sources cannot be traced back to the "Christian" religious sect of the first few centuries AD - and no documentary evidence at all that can be dated to earlier than 50-100 years *after* his death.
That doesn't mean he didn't exist, but only that there is little concrete evidence of it - but after all, that's what faith is for, right, believing in shit without evidence?
...will it blend?
It will have elephant mitochondrial DNA, so it will be a Mammoth/elephant hybrid.
If they want a "real" mammoth (short of finding a female with viable eggs), they're going to have to replace the mitochondria also (and, no, midichlorians won't work either, although you'd end up with a very forceful animal), and keeping the egg alive while doing that has never been done, AFAIK.
"Like Wooly Chicken!"
And the first questions after they have successfully cloned a mammoth by the people will be, "How does it taste?"
And the answer will be, "Like chicken!"
Perhaps the best source of historical information about Jesus of Nazareth is Josephus, where clearly Jesus was mentioned explicitly due to the role that his followers played in the events during the 1st Century AD (not called that BTW in his records). It isn't a perfect reference and I'll admit that you can interpret other individuals instead of the historical person that is claimed to have founded the Christian religious philosophies, but it also isn't correct to claim that no contemporary sources of information exist about him either.
The standard you are proposing here is that we must have e-mails, tweets, and video footage of the guy from cradle to grave in order to accept the historical existence of somebody. By that standard, nobody ever existed in the world prior to about 1950 since obviously there is no proof that they ever existed.
One of the worst aspects of documents from this time period is that the collapse of the Roman Empire also led to the loss of a whole bunch of records that could have been used to determine the historical existence of somebody like Jesus. Still, enough has survived that it most certainly is trolling to suggest Jesus didn't exist at all or making stuff up out of your behind that such records or archeological evidence can't be found to indicate his existence as a historical figure.
One fatal flaw with your story idea. If Jesus Christ's DNA is truly unique (I am assuming that you are basing this on the idea of the virgin birth and that God is his father), where would you get the DNA to create the clone?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
and all the other species that went extinct in the last 200 years? Do you think we could we could try again???
Two points on this. First, our documentation of Alexander the Great has an even larger gap than what you postulate for the Gospels. Second, the earliest letters of Paul (which refer to Jesus) are dated to the 40s. Additionally, the Gospel of Luke was written before 67 A.D. (the Gospel was written before the Acts of the Apostles, which was written before Paul's death in 67).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Are they taking any precautions against the probability that the genome contains viral components just as ours does? If they cannot prove beforehand that no virus will start replicating from the Wolly Mammoth genome once they activate it, they should not be allowed to proceed.
E Proelio Veritas.
I know the moral wizards will want to perform secret rituals on a moonless night over these but if these critters can reproduce it might be one heck of a commercial product. The meat and fat are obvious products. The leather, tusks and bones could also be quite valuable. Now we normally would never think of a ranch created to raise elephants but an extinct species brought back from oblivion is another kettle of lard all together. They would need a lot of feed and who has a clue at what age a mammoth should be harvested, but all in all one might get one heck of a rib roast out of these beasts.
because reviving old species might be the least valuable service. We can already combine material to get the egg we need who is to say that sometime down the road a fully artificial womb would not be viable and allow for replication of any specie?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
One Korea! Korean Won!
[1] Correct at time of writing. VWP, YMMV.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
South korea's climate is quite cool and dry. Think a cooler version of SoCal's chapparal.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Did no one pay attention to Jurassic Park? Remember how well that ended?
They're trying to do like the Protos.
And who's responsible when a couple of these get out of lab, eh?
I had enough trouble chasing down some goddamn superrats that escaped our lab. Finally fixed those smart little bastards by setting out chessboards with pawns made of poison cheese.
But WTF do I use to lure a f**k*** woolly mammoth? Do I _want_ to lure a wooly mammoth?
<vreenak>It's a FAKE</vreenak>
our new Wooly Masters.
What about all the bacteria and other organisms that live inside most mammals and help us digest our food/etc? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora. How will this thing digest its food?
Care to post some? Which doesn't come from a motivated source (i.e., an early Christian sect)?
I actually tend to agree with you on the notion of "Jesus as a historical cult leader who was not magical", on the basis that there's never been a shortage of people starting cults, so there isn't likely to be much need to invent a fictitious person. However I've never seen or heard of any serious evidence that anyone meeting the description existed.
For one thing, there are no trustworthy sources. The only contemporaries who ever talked about Jesus tended to be followers. That's not to say that they're lying; it's just that they'd be saying it whether it was true or not.
Am I the only one wondering why the hell this is a real project? Do we really need this species back that bad that we are willing to genetically engineer one back into existence?
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
Two other things about the pros:
4) They can spell.
5) They can punctuate.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I know just the guy for the job: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYhT6FHEpwY
"While plenty of people may dispute the deity of Jesus Christ, there's no shortage of historical documentation that he existed"
Care to produce some? Accounts of Christ were injected by the church into the writings of a Jewish historian and that is pretty much the extent of non-biblical references to Christ as a human. At least in a work written in the ballpark of the time the human is supposed to have lived. The earliest new testament work was written by Paul much later, he had a vision of Christ which he claimed was just as valid as the vision had by Peter. There was no indication that Christ was ever thought to have been an actual human being. References to Christ as a person come far later. Tales of Christ generally parallel those of other typical sun deities. Virgin Birth/Divine Father, born under an important star, dies and resurrected (as the seasons and sunset/sunrise). Actually, Christ is a rebirth. It is a story of Mithra the sun deity and takes most of its source material there. Mithra is renamed to Christ and adapted into the Jewish messiah. As time goes on the new testament book authors went back and fulfilled prophesies for the messiah unfortunately they mistranslated said prophesies and the Christ stories fulfill the mistranslations. Even if you believe Christ lived, the Christians represented a very small fringe cult of fanatics until the roman emperor Constantine got the idea of using their religion.
The idea that it is universally accepted and undisputed that Christ probably lived by historians is a myth. The myth was perpetrated mostly by Christian "historians" and "archaeologists" and taken mainstream by urban legend. Today if you ask most people they will tell you it is so. Of course most people will tell you that people only use x% of their brain (10%, 15%, 30% it varies) when in reality everyone uses their entire brain. Both represent ignorance that is common knowledge.
"Perhaps the best source of historical information about Jesus of Nazareth is Josephus [wikipedia.org]"
It is debated and in fact doubtful that Josephus wrote anything about Christ. It is far more likely Church scholars injected the references much later.
Paul does not refer to Jesus as a person but as a vision. He gives no indication that he ever thought Jesus lived as a man and indicates that Peter also had a vision and that his own vision is at least as credible.
The only other reference is from Jewish scholar named Josephus who wrote around that time period. The references to Jesus are not characteristic of the rest of his work and are were "discovered" by Christian scholars much later. Despite the fact that scholars far and wide referred to the works of Josephus often none of them caught these references to Christ and people continued to not refer to them or to refer to them in a tongue-in-cheek manner until relatively modern times.
That is completely false. Paul repeatedly referred to Jesus as a man who lived as a man. In particular, in Galatians 1:19 he refers to meeting "James, the Lord's brother." There are other references in his writing that indicate that Paul considered Jesus to be a man who actually lived and at one point he makes a statement that is essentially, "If you don't believe me, there are over 500 witnesses still living who met Him."
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
"Galatians 1:19 he refers to meeting "James, the Lord's brother."
That isn't even a definitive reference to Christ, let alone a reference to Christ being a man.
But that is beside the point. Christ is very distinct from Alexander the Great not because of the gap in time of the writings, which was massive given the time period, but because there is physical evidence to corroborate the accomplishments of Alexander the Great. Records of Alexander are widespread and extensive. Nothing of the sort exists with regard to Christ.
Josephus did write about the followers of Christ and his histories are one of the few reliable references to the early Christian church. As to specific references to Christ himself, I will grant that the references are dubious at best. Then again you could argue a similar dubious reference for many historical persons of the era.
What was demanded was some sort of citation for historical documents from the era, and I gave an example of a historian of the era whose writings are about the best that you can get considering the region of the world and somebody familiar with local customs and culture that was the province of Judea in the Roman Republic in the 1st Century AD. If it was just Josephus alone that could provide such documentation, I'll admit it is pretty weak, but there are other historical documentary references to consider as well. That anything survived the Jewish rebellion which happened shortly after the ministry of Jesus should be amazing by itself.
To be perfectly blunt, the fact that a rather ordinary Jewish rabbi from this era has any historical documentation at all is unusual, as the historical existence of anybody who wasn't a senator or emperor (or a local provincial king) was hardly documented. The best documentation really is the various "gospels" of the New Testament. What is being asked here is independent collaborative evidence on the presumption that the New Testament is a flawed set of documents needing collaboration from outside authorities. That is one way that the records of Josephus have been used as they do confirm at least some parts of the New Testament in terms of independent records of other historical people and institutions mentioned in the New Testament documents, as well as confirming cultural customs of the people of Judea of that era.
It is a reference to a man who Paul met who was the brother of "the Lord". In the context, "the Lord" is clearly Jesus and the fact that James was his brother clearly indicates that Paul thought of him as a man.
The point is that the documentation for Alexander the Great is considered reliable, yet the earliest existing document we have concerning him was written 400 years after his death and the oldest copy of that that we possess was made in the 1100s. The earliest document we have concerning Jesus was written less than 20 years after his death and the oldest complete copy of the entire New Testament that we possess was made in the 4th Century. This does not make the accounts of his life accurate, but it makes it improbable that he never lived.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
So much for evolution. If you can believe that a mammoth stayed frozen like that for millions of years you got problems. The Earth is only 6 thousand years old just like the Bible says. You can read about how dumb evolution is on my website www.truthsjourney.com
Amos
Care to post some? Which doesn't come from a motivated source (i.e., an early Christian sect)?
Isn't that like discrediting all connected to the USA and NASA when asking about proof that man actually walked on the moon?! I mean, the people who mostly care are those with an agenda and its not every day a completely neutral party is going to go out of their way looking for 2000 year old history and interpret it validly and without some sort of bias (if not bias from the teachings they have had)
The evidence itself should be investigated, not the source
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
"In the context, "the Lord" is clearly Jesus"
According to you.
"The point is that the documentation for Alexander the Great is considered reliable"
Because it is corroborated by physical evidence and there isn't especial reason to question its validity. You can't dismiss the corroborating physical evidence. One piece of physical evidence trumps a hundred writings from the most credible of historical authors. With written works you can hypothesize with physical evidence you can theorize.
"The earliest document we have concerning Jesus was written less than 20 years after his death"
If you are saying 20 years you could only be referring to the christian interpolations into the works of Josephus. The earliest works concerning Jesus (as a man or otherwise) are Biblical. Refer to the earliest known fragments section of the table linked below. The supposed "dates determined by scholars" are speculation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible#The_New_Testament
"This does not make the accounts of his life accurate, but it makes it improbable that he never lived."
All it makes probable is that someone took accounts of the deity Mithra and combined them with their own Jewish legends to invent a messiah. Rather than claiming to be that person they claimed to have seen a vision of him or met someone who met someone who met him years ago. That is far easier than actually claiming to be a deity with powers yourself and just as effective to build a cult around.
There is more evidence that a man named Hercules once lived than jesus.
If you are saying 20 years you could only be referring to the christian interpolations into the works of Josephus.
No, I am referring to the writings of Paul. However, three of the Gospels were also written before Josephus wrote (probably less than 30 years after Jesus death). Josephus wrote something like 40-50 years after Jesus' death.
The thing is, every document we have of Mithra that bears any resemblance to the records in the Gospel accounts were written well after the Gospels. All of the documents about Mithraism that we have from the first century or earlier do not contain any reference to material similar to what is in the Gospels.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I bet you could make a mean sweater...
So easy a caveman can do it