New Russian Laboratory To Study Mammoth Cloning

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."

Comments

Putin got tired of riding bears

[silviuc]

He wants to ride a mammoth now!

Re:Putin got tired of riding bears

[Culture20]

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!

Re:Putin got tired of riding bears

[Coisiche]

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.

Re:frontier of science

[prefec2]

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.

Re:frontier of science

[Coisiche]

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.

Old joke cloned from hibernation

[Antique Geekmeister]

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/...

Re:Old joke cloned from hibernation

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Wow

[codeButcher]

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

I'd say that qualifies as cool.

Well finally!

[sabbede]

I've always wanted to see one.

Re:Well finally!

[RabidReindeer]

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

Doing something just because it's cool

[Dr. Spork]

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!

Re:Doing something just because it's cool

[solartear]

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.

Re:Doing something just because it's cool

[Motard]

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.

Another perspective

[umafuckit]

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

Re:Another perspective

[ancientt]

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.