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The Mammoth Cometh: Revive & Restore Tackles De-Extinction
theodp writes "Slashdot's been following de-extinction efforts for a good 15 years. Now, in The Mammoth Cometh, this week's NY Times Magazine cover story, Nathaniel Rich writes that 'bringing extinct animals back to life is really happening — and it's going to be very, very cool. Unless it ends up being very, very bad.' Among the 'genetic rescues' being pursued by The Long Now Foundation's Revive & Restore project is The Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback. And returning a flock of passenger pigeons to the planet is just the tip of the iceberg. 'We're bringing back the mammoth to restore the steppe in the Arctic,' says Stewart Brand. 'One or two mammoths is not a success. 100,000 mammoths is a success.' De-extinction, while no doubt thrilling ('It would certainly be cool to see a living saber-toothed cat,' Stanford's Hank Greely and Jacob Sherkow argued in Science), is disturbing to many conservation biologists who question the logic of bringing back an animal whose native habitat has disappeared, worry about disease, and are concerned that money may be diverted from other conservation efforts."
I'm not a biologist by a long shot.. but mitochondrial + nuclear DNA would make an actual mammoth, no matter where it gestates. Either that, or I've completely misunderstood everything I've ever read on the subject, which -admittedly- isn't very much. Anyone with actual knowledge on the subject care to clarify?
Um, not really. My understanding is that dodos tasted terrible. (Look up the Dutch word "walgvogel".) It wasn't that we ate them all, it's that we introduced predators into their environment that ate their eggs.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You are correct, it's the DNA what counts. Mitochondrial might even be fudged and it would still be a mammoth. We currently use rabbits to transmit cattle embryos. They wouldn't be part rabbit even it term were possible. (Yeah, yeah, ouch)