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New Russian Laboratory To Study Mammoth Cloning

Posted by samzenpus on from the Mr.-Snuffleupagus dept.

An anonymous reader writes: While plans to clone a woolly mammoth are not new, a lab used in a joint effort by Russia and South Korea is. The new facility is devoted to studying extinct animal DNA in the hope of creating clones from the remains of animals found in the permafrost. IBtimes reports: "The Sakha facility has the world's largest collection of frozen ancient animal carcasses and remains, with more than 2,000 samples in its possession, including some that are tens of thousands years old, such as a mammoth discovered on the island of Maly Lyakhovsky; experts believe it may be more than 28,000 years old."

45 comments

  1. Putin got tired of riding bears by silviuc · · Score: 5, Funny

    He wants to ride a mammoth now!

    1. Re:Putin got tired of riding bears by Culture20 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Are we going to let the Russians beat us in a new area of transportation science? If we don't clone the first mammoth, we'll have to clone the first mammoth on the moon!

    2. Re:Putin got tired of riding bears by thhamm · · Score: 1

      But i thought, in Putin's Russia, extinct species clone YOU?!

    3. Re:Putin got tired of riding bears by Coisiche · · Score: 3, Funny

      A first glance miss read of that made me think it was the first use of the required new language metaphor; "the mammoth in the room". In my mind similar to "the elephant in the room" but even more glaringly obvious.

    4. Re:Putin got tired of riding bears by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, the US was already cloning elks back in the 1980s.

    5. Re:Putin got tired of riding bears by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Put Disney on the job: Pleistocene Park!

    6. Re:Putin got tired of riding bears by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Please, you'd have to rent the capacity from the Russians to get to the moon in the first place. ;-)

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    7. Re:Putin got tired of riding bears by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      Then we'll clone mammoths to the moon!

    8. Re:Putin got tired of riding bears by Barbecue911 · · Score: 0

      Cloning mammoths is good practice for cloning Putin. Maybe the next version will be shaggier.

    9. Re:Putin got tired of riding bears by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everybody wants to ride a mammoth! They better watch out for those zombie bees while digging around, though.

    10. Re:Putin got tired of riding bears by CODiNE · · Score: 1

      To truly capitalize on mammoth transportation technology what we really need is the Mammoth Centipede.

      --
      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
  2. all the vlads agree, moms are one of a kind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    where our softer lighter spirit of creation originates, each of us an original overmatch for spiritless clones... thanks again moms

  3. frontier of science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what can possibly go wrong?

    1. Re:frontier of science by thhamm · · Score: 1

      Nothing, we just used some Frog-DNA to fill in the gaps, but they're all female.

    2. Re:frontier of science by prefec2 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Mammoth is not really a problem. a) we got them extinct the first time (if these rumours are true) and b) they are just elephants. We are very able to get them extinct in Africa, so no problem with that.

    3. Re:frontier of science by Coisiche · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yep, bringing back extinct megafauna with cloning and genetic engineering is no real worry.

      It's the genetic engineering of microfauna that's more likely to go wrong and kill us all.

  4. As long as this is limited to mammoth by prefec2 · · Score: 0

    Wait until they clone Putin or even better Stalin the Great.

  5. Old joke cloned from hibernation by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 4, Informative

    I knew I'd seen this: it was an April Fool's prank, in 1984. The paper has been cited repeatedly by foolish biology paper authors for the last 30 years.

              http://hoaxes.org/af_database/...

    1. Re:Old joke cloned from hibernation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, well. Mad magazine joked once about a 5 bladed razor.

    2. Re:Old joke cloned from hibernation by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Al Jaffee joked about a 17 blade razor. Only 12 to go!

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      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    3. Re:Old joke cloned from hibernation by Rufty · · Score: 1

      Only 11 blades to go.

      --
      Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
  6. I liked it better... by swb · · Score: 1

    ....when it was called "The Boys from Brazil".

  7. Wow by codeButcher · · Score: 2

    The Sakha facility has the world's largest collection of frozen ancient animal carcasses and remains.....

    I'd say that qualifies as cool.

    --
    Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
  8. Why? by ImWithBrilliant · · Score: 1

    Are they low in cholesterol?

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    Is it a rule, that there's an exception to every rule?

    1. Re:Why? by blue9steel · · Score: 1

      No, but apparently they taste like bacon, which is why we hunted them to extinction the first time. Giant bacony Mammoth steaks, mmmmm........

  9. Well finally! by sabbede · · Score: 2

    I've always wanted to see one.

    1. Re:Well finally! by RabidReindeer · · Score: 2

      Seeing would be great. Smelling, on the other hand... I'm imagining elephant smell mixed with very large wet dog.

    2. Re: Well finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And girls could rub peanut butter on their badges n let the trunk do the rest.. Chicks dig wet dog.

    3. Re: Well finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.urbandictionary.com...

  10. What about the most recent samples? by Flavianoep · · Score: 1

    Old is not cool! Well, literally, older DNA samples have been cooler than cool for ages, but DNA has a half life of about half a millennium, therefore the older the samples the less useful they are. If they have a 38k mammoth DNA sample, that is by no means impressive.

    --
    Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
    1. Re:What about the most recent samples? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Old is not cool!

      Sure it is.

      It's fun to get the religious wingnuts spinning over the concept of anything on this planet being more than 5000 years old.

    2. Re:What about the most recent samples? by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      eh, if Christian they're cool with up to 4004 + 2015 = 6019.

      Also, the Jewish calendar has year 5775

  11. Doing something just because it's cool by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think it's time we admit to ourselves that sometimes, we want scientists to do certain things simply because they're cool. That should count as a perfectly adequate reason, so that we can stop this silly game of pretending that we need to do something cool because we inexplicably started caring a lot about settling some very small and boring scientific question.

    I see this a lot when people discuss manned missions to Mars. It's a popular idea, but only because it's cool and full of symbolism we like. It's not because people suddenly became nerds about the history of the Martian regolith, and unmanned missions will simply not adequately satisfy their burning curiosity. Of course, the Mars mission would cost an insane fortune. I'm all for cool things, and humanity is pretty rich, but not that rich. Cloning a mammoth, on the other hand... We might be able to afford that!

    1. Re:Doing something just because it's cool by solartear · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Cloning an extinct species may be an important technology. We are currently creating a mass extinction event, and may need/want to bring back some species we killed off. It might even be profitable or lifesaving, like producing a cure for an infection or Star Trek IV.

    2. Re:Doing something just because it's cool by Motard · · Score: 2

      Cloning an extinct species may be an important technology. We are currently creating a mass extinction event, and may need/want to bring back some species we killed off. It might even be profitable or lifesaving, like producing a cure for an infection or Star Trek IV.

      I don't think there will ever be a cure for Star Trek IV.

  12. Hmmm tasty Mammoth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Burgers and steaks...

    captcha: foresee

  13. Another perspective by umafuckit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    here's a different perspective from someone who studies mammoths.

    --
    soylentnews.org
    1. Re:Another perspective by Psychotria · · Score: 1

      There's a very simple solution to his main argument against cloning mammoths: clone elephants first.

    2. Re:Another perspective by ancientt · · Score: 2

      Money. It's about money.

      People will pay a huge amount to see the first live mammoth. It captures the imagination in a way elephant or mouse or bird cloning just cannot compare to. I'm all for science advancement and in favor of careful study of biomes and being cautious, but none of those things grab headlines. The money that would pour into de-extinction development for a mammoth will be huge compared to any of the suggested other projects, and that's why cloning a mammoth is such a good thing. Getting the research and testing and trials done to bring back a mammoth will make it tremendously easier to complete other projects that may have more fundamental benefit to the scientific community.

      You don't send a mission to Mars or even to the moon because that's the best return on investment, you do it because it makes people care about the science in ways they never would for the fundamental research that makes it possible.

      You have to deal with the public like you would a four year old child. You don't have a four year old child look forward to going to the dentist because it's good for their health, you get them to look forward to it because they get a toy and ice cream after. Likewise you don't get the public to support a scientific project to benefit the ecosystems and research that being able to clone extinct and endangered animals can offer; you get the public to support the idea of getting to see a mammoth in person.

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      B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
    3. Re:Another perspective by umafuckit · · Score: 1

      Sending people to Mars is the kind of engineering challenge that is feasible now, just very expensive. It seems reasonable to expect that we could get people there intact on the first try. Successfully cloning a mammoth is not like that, however. As outlined http://www.theguardian.com/sci...">here there will inevitably be a lot of trial and error because we don't have an intact genome. We'd have to reconstruct an essentially error-free genome from fragments. That's like doing a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces cut up, no idea what the final thing should look like, and no guarantee that you have all the pieces. That's beyond and engineering challenge. Failure to produce a very high accuracy reproduction of the genome will result in aborted embryos, horrible deformations, etc. That's even if we get to that stage. So it will be a slow and unpleasant form of biological trial and error. I really don't see it happening.

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      soylentnews.org
  14. Cool by Translation+Error · · Score: 1

    When does Quaternary Park open?

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    When someone says, "Any fool can see ..." they're usually exactly right.
  15. But most importantly.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As Monsanto taught us: Cloning or Geneticially engineering things gives you a patent term worth of monetization benefits, especially if it is something that no other member of the public has genetic access to!

    Yay for genetic IP!

  16. is John Varley involved? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-John-Varley-ebook/dp/B009XP3T24/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1441395055&sr=1-3&keywords=mammoth