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Wooly Mammoth Extracted Intact From Siberian Ice
Lawrence_Bird writes ... a group of scientists have extracted a wooly mammoth intact from a Siberian icefield. "They used a radar imaging technique to `see' the mammoth in its icy grave, then excavated a huge block of frozen dirt around it to preserve the 23,000-year-old creature." See the dailynews.yahoo story. Naturally, there's talk of cloning the thing. If the effort succeeds, will McDonald's sell McMammoth burgers?
Well, then maybe they can do better with the next one. These things seem to show up every decade or so, so there should be more of them.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
What exactly does believing in God have to do with not going to doctors? or any of your "life" things?
How is not going to a doctor putting "Your money where your mouth is"? God teaches self reliance, although many (for and against God) misinterpret this to mean dependancy on God.
God doesn't determine the outcome, just the timing of the end.
But even Darwin believed in a Creator God - and he said so himself.
/. discussion and look at some of the anti-Christian anti-creationist hate speech below.)
As for objectivity, I think it's quite fair to say that there are unthinking, knee-jerk types in both camps. (If you think creationists have an exclusive on that, just keep reading this
It's just simply neither fair nor accurate to say that there are not deep thinking people on both sides. And evolution itself is a dogma at least as strong as that in any religion. (If you doubt this, do some good research on anomalous fossil finds (there are many) and then publish your results - anything that challenges evolution in the slightest is ridiculed in the "scientific" community, regardless of merit.)
In fact, the only people I know who have done honest, well-balanced reviews of the evidence on both sides happen to be creationists, since, unfortunately, evolutionists tend to dismiss creation as impossible before bothering to look at the facts that support that position.
Truth is what matters. The point is to seek the truth.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
>God is a lot smarter than you, me and the guy who >wrote the Bible.
I think that the Bible was written by more than one people (yeah, whole lot of psychos or drug users writing down the "holy" word, argh)
While we hear propaganda from both sides of the eco-coin, the truth is the ecosystem is in balance right now. -- I'm just wondering what you're calling 'in balance' -- does anyone know the numbers of 'this many species go extinct every day' that you hear all the time (yes, propaganda, but is it true?)...? Seems like it would be more of a 'balance' if we weren't losing species right and left, and adding a few back into the mix... Just my two cents.
PG -------- "Hi, I'm an IT Recruiter... Hey, wait. Come back!"
But even Darwin believed in a Creator God - and he said so himself.
This is what Darwin actually said about religion: http://www.update.uu.se/~fbend z/library/cd_relig.htm
A short excerpt:
Everyone who believes, as I do, that all the corporeal and mental organs (excepting those which are neither advantegous or disadvantegous to the posessor) of all beings have been developed through natural selection, or the survival of the fittest, together with use or habit[4], will admit that these organs have formed so that their possessors may compete succesfully with other beings, and thus increase in number.
Sure Darwin was religious, and sure he did believe in a "Creator God", but only before he set out with the Beagle.
if you truly believe, as I do, that God created man in His own likeness
I've always wondered in whose image he created woman. Any idea, oh learned one?
BTW, since you seem so in touch with god's intentions, can you ask him why he intended all those dumbass televangelists to be created?
No offense, but you're probably the smartest creationist I've seen posting something on the net.
>Don't do that. I know some women that would try >to breed with them.
Why not.. those neanderthals would probably be much smarter than bunch of creationists posting here anyway, and some women/men are stupid enought to try breeding with creationists so why not neanderthals as well?
Isn't inbreeding pretty much the way of the wild? I know that horses at least (which, given, are NOT mammoths) consistently mated with their own offspring/parents. I don't think that's a stopper as far as repopulating the world with mammoths. What would stop it pretty effectively, however, is the commercial value of the novelty of 'owning' the rights to mammoths in general; Some big corporation will pay to make the clone(s), and get the "rights" to them... I can just picture mammoth regeneration not for the good of the mammoth or for the people in the world who would love to see extinct species alive again, but for the dollar signs in the eyes of a greedy corporation.
Again, just my two cents.
PG -------- "Hi, I'm an IT Recruiter... Hey, wait. Come back!"
Those of us who watched that show already knew this day was coming, and some possible consequences. :-)
But the amazing thing about these frozen
mammoths is that there must have been a fairly
mild climate to produce enough veggies to keep
them going. Then it got much colder so suddenly
that they didn't rot or get eaten by scavengers
- and stayed that way since.
No problem with that. It is well-known that the climate was milder. It certainly didn't change abruptly enough to freeze the mammoths in place though.
But the ice came, slowly. Glaciers grew a bit from year to year, although the land around them could still support a few mammoths. Now and then a mammoth tried to cross a stretch of ice. A few of them probably fell into cracks and got conserved.
It may not be good enough for cloning, but it should allow the police to close the books on a number of unsolved 23,000-year old crime cases.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
You've never actually SEEN an angry mammoth, have you?
:-)
Get the fuck over it. If their beliefs are so obviously bad and dangerous, why are you worried that people might pay attention to them?
It just all boils down to intellectual elitism: your belief that you're somehow just smarter than the Average Joe, so that they'll be taken in by these wrong-but-persuasive snake-oil beliefs, and it's your God-given (sorry, science-given) duty to 'save them from themselves.'
Sounds pretty evangelical to me.
You are right.. htm
It is our greed that leads us to do the damage.
Even visiting virgin wilderness on foot to experience the majesty of it all carries it's risk, a few phytophthera spores on your boots can do incredible damage in an environment that can not defend itself against it.
Balanced ecosystems are fragile and do not like to be fucked with.
They either retaliate or die, either way we loose.
In Tassie, wilderness cushion grass plains never recover from the impact of humans (or other imported fauna) walking over them. Native fauna traverse with balanced, recoverable impact.
http://www.tigerlogo.tased.edu.au/subject/environ
Enjoy, and come and visit sometime.
Preach it, brother.
Self-assured sophomorisms from all these teenagers who have it all figured out and know that Science Will Save Us are more annoying than statements of pure religious faith, because at least the latter ACKNOWLEDGE what it is.
That wouldn't really be a smart solution because larger animals are less eficient at transforming their food into body mass. That's why chiken, for example, is cheaper than beef; hens eats less per pound of meat they produce.
Humans have not eradicated any animals from the world, they simply were not fit to survive. Things happen for a reason after all. I see the Wolly Mammoth fit to come back, they look tastey. I want a bbq mammoth tenderloin sandwich.
As far as reintroduction of this animal bringing back a disease, what if the apollo missions brought back some disease?
Woman was formed after man. See verse 18 through 25. No offense taken. Most creationists are, however, correct to a point in their belief that we "shouldn't play God". Let's consider that when the monks copied the scrolls of the Bible, they would take a bath before writing the name of God. This was out of respect. Similarly, "most creationists" also do not want man to upset God in trying to "take His place" so to speak. I just happen to believe differently. God will reveal all when His Kingdom is at hand.
SL33ZE, MCSD
em: joedipshit@hotmail.com
SL33ZE - Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
You know what simultaneously amuses the living hell out of me, and pisses me off incredibly?
The way slashdot folks will just *pile on* to criticize anyone stating a Christian belief, yet let pass *equally retarded* statements from the luddite/anti-nuke/anti-genetic-science crowd.
Just for the record, because I'm sure someone will pipe up and squeal that I must be some 'fundie' trying to defend religion, I don't believe in creationism, and I don't think that there's any guiding higher power out there...not God, not Gaia, nothing.
But watching you oh-so-cool children of the 80s posture and preen as you rip into a religionist, while ignoring the *completely fucking retarded* beliefs of the scientifically ignorant folks that fear genetic manipulation or nuclear power just gets my (non-endangered) goat.
Science Will Save Us are more annoying than statements of pure religious faith, because at least the latter ACKNOWLEDGE what it is.
:)
Eh, who said anything about saving anyone? I was simply saying a moronic fundamentalist was illiterate (coz he couldn't subtract 2 numbers) . But since you too have difficulty reading, perhaps...
Speaking of "saving", next time you need medical attention, brush off the physician. Tell him you don't need science to save your life, and go to the preacher. I've heard he works miracles.
ancient virii we are no longer immune to.
people shaking and vomiting blood within hours of exposure; dead in less than a day -- blood running from every orifice.
i have heard that caution is recommended when exposing any frozen tissue more than about 100 years old due to this issue.
this is a major exposure to well preserved tissue that is much older.
hope thay are careful and don't end up killing everyone.
If their beliefs are so obviously bad and dangerous, why are you worried that people might pay attention to them?
.. they have obscure religious beliefs! Let's snap some photographs!"
.. color me elitist, I guess. My kids received enough religious brainwashing at the hands of their estranged mother; they don't need any more of it, and they certainly won't be getting it from public schools, thank you very much ..
?
Are you suggesting that my children ought to be taught, in science class, that the Universe is 6,000 years old? Or that when some religious lunatic on the radio calls for people to "rise up and butcher Muslims", we should all say "Awwww, isn't that cute
Uh uh.
It just all boils down to intellectual elitism
No, it doesn't. The entire Universe was not poofed into existence 6,000 years ago. To even entertain the notion is offensive to common sense and humanity. If it makes me an "intellectual elitist" to oppose the teaching of such nonsense to my children, well
and it's your God-given (sorry, science-given) duty to 'save them from themselves.'
Wrong again.
As far as I'm concerned, people can delude themselves in whatever fashion they see fit. Doesn't matter a fuck-all to me. However, the line should (and does) get drawn when they attempt to legislate their delusion to make it compulsory. Uh uh. Sorry, won't happen. If you want to sit at home and worship a bloodthirsty clown that orbits Saturn and wants you to kill trumpet players with a meat cleaver, then that's all fine and dandy. But you ain't gonna be teaching my kids about it.
That is an excellent question. If you're interested in some speculation, check out Immanuel Velikovsky's Earth in Upheaval.
This line intentionally left blank.
> If you are not the fittest then in time you will die out
Yeah, let's nuke the Amazon rainforest. The wussy bugs and trees don't deserve to live now that we have the means to obliterate them! It's only a matter of time anyway before they die out anyway.
> - I don't necessarily hold the same opinion for animals which have been eradicated by humans. Also, I am not the worlds greatest historian and I don't know what it was that killed them off
OK, this is the score. Wooly mamoths, the European rinocerous and the sabertoothed cat all died out at about the same time that homo sapiens (our great granparents) started wandering about the landscape and throwing spears around. Note that these are all large mamals that would be either tasty to cavepersons (mamoth, rhino) or compete for space in caves and try to eat thier children (sabretoothed cat). Hmm.
> I don't necessarily hold the same opinion for animals which have been eradicated by humans
So you should be in favour of bringing back the mamoth. Or perhaps humans "au naturel" before civilisation don't count? You cannot draw lines like that.
Humankind was, is and always will be a part of nature, and a extinction caused by humans is as "natural" as any other.
That doesn't mean I won't miss the bengal tiger though. Which life is worth more - a person or a gorilla? Hm, let's see, there are 6 billion people, a few 1000 gorillas in existence. I'd have to go with the gorilla.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
A mamooth would not be genetically modified. The point of the EU is that we don't know at all what are the effect on genetically modified products.
Evolution is a scientific fact. Science can never dis-prove God. Only change our knowledge on how the universe he created works. Man at one time believed the universe rotated around the Earth and that was Gods plan. They even had biblical proof! well guess what, Mans interpitation was wrong. According to Catholic theology evolution did happen, they call Theolistic evolution, or something like that. And just to point it out, evolutions does not mean we come from monkeys, but share a common ancester. 7 days is a long time in God time. OUT
Clone 'em up real good.
Think of the novelty...mammoth burgers!
--
Max V.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Worse case scenerio: Mamoth gets LOOSE, and wanders amiable until recaptured.
Ah, but it's not quite THAT bad. If the subject was of child bearing/siring age (I don't know if it's male or female), then you've probably got a generous ammount of sperm or eggs to work with, which, if I'm remembering my high school biology correctly, already have some variance from the parent built in. Plus this genetic material is better protected than that of the other cells. Plus if the subject is female, you eliminate the (IMHO pointless) debate about mitochondria, because you can use hers directly. And as for keepinng the population stable, well, you can keep infusing "fresh" clones into the population for as long as you want, which would tend to at least keep the population true to its starting point. And if you didn't breed the 'failures' back into the pool, the population would eventually stabilize over many generations. That aside, it's still a massive undertaking, and any race bred from one subject will not be completely true to the original population. But its not as hard as it might seem at first glance. The real question is, as always, what purpose does this serve? What the hell are we gonna do with a bunch of Wooly Mammoths with no real native habitat? Will this accomplish anything besides 1) proving it can be done 2) having some live ones to study 3) adding cool new creatures to the local zoo? -evilWurst
paraphrased: 'at a constant temperature of -12C to -13C, (8-9F). Very constant. :)
:)
Now i'm wondering, what do you do in a power failure? You have a huge, several thousand year old meat pack in your lab freezer, and it begins to defrost.......now I see where the Mickey D's reference comes from.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
You said it, bub. ;)
On deck: Sabre-toothed cats.
In the hole: Stegosaurs, Brontosaurs, and Pterosaurs.
--
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
do we have to play God? I like my life. My life will be just fine without watching this tortured creature being resurrected in the name of science.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Actually, evidence is that primitive humans DID play a significant role in the extinction of the woolly mammoth and quite a few other species -- along the North American west coast, the mammoth's range shrank contiguous with the increase of territory inhabited by prehistoric humans.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Didn't we learn anything from Jurasic Park? *grin*
Nah What the hell, lets clone it and see what city he goes after first. There is the REAL study.
(My bet is on san fran).
SL33ZE, MCSD
em: joedipshit@hotmail.com
SL33ZE - Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
I wonder if I'll ever get to try mammoth steak.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Anyway, I think this is ultra-cool. To use an elephant to give birth to a mammoth is kind of an interesting idea. I don't think any animal has ever given birth to a child of a different species before. The whole idea is amazing.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
This is the same beast they plan on cloning in the future. The only fully intact, and mummified mammoth known.
It is refreshing to know that we have come to the point technologically, scientifically, and medically that we can begin to re-populate the earth with the animals we brought to extinction. Yes I am aware that we did not bring the woolly mammoths to extinction, but I think there will be other efforts to clone animals we have killed off (the tasmanian wolf comes to mind). It makes you wonder about the Star Trek movie where they have to go back in time for the whales... heheh they could've just cloned one :-)
Deitheres
-- .sig files go when they die?
Child: Mommy, where do
Mother: HELL! Straight to hell!
I've never been the same since.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
Actually with all this talk of eons and waiting for things to happen I'm sure that they may not have had electricity, but they surely had Windows and were waiting on the reboot.
actually I don't think he's discovered the mammoth, but he got called in pretty soon, being one of the world's leading experts on mammoths. What's also nice is the fact that it fell on some plants, and those plants seem to have remained reasonably intact (just a little squashed, but that's what you get for laying under a dead mammoth for 3000+ years)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Hair dryers?
Also catch the link at the bottom: Russian Scientist Denies Whole Mammoth Unearthed. Some question as to how much of the beast's remains remain; it may be just wool and bones.
-- Jeff Paulsen
Dude... so you are saying having a monstrously huge creature grazing about "useless" land isn't going to cause any environmental problems? WTF? These creatures became extinct for a fuckin' reason and the idea that we could have them running about like some pack of new-age cows is absurd. Their sheer size alone would wreak havok on land: their shit would pollute watersheds and their enormous feet would trample ground and cause erosion.
We already have enough problems with cows and at least they aren't large enough to trample or eat people.
I thought neanderthals were vegetarians. Big, flat teeth and all that for grinding instead of cutting. We (australopithecus afarensis?) won out by our ability to subsist on carrion and vegetation alike.
Hunting was very touch and go in the beginning, with often as many (or more) hunters killed as prey (when dealing with mammoths, at least.
The technological innovation of the atlatl is believed to have changed this very drastically. The atlatl is a devestatingly simple device which allows a single person to throw a spear with vastly superior accuracy and power than with his or her arm alone.
The odds were very suddenly reversed, with one man often killing more than one mammoth.
Must have been a real blast until the population died down, at which point there was probably a lot of suffering due to the vastly increased populations of humans.
Same old same old!
**>>BELCH
First of all. Elephants are not descendants of mammoths. They are cousins in much the same way we are cousins of Gorillas and Chimpanzees. A closer analogy would be the extinct Neanderthals which lived at the same time as homosapiens.
This does not make sense to me... however, although I do not know for certain on this, since we have not heard of other mammoths being found in a condition as good as this particular mammoth it is my assumption that not many are found as well-preserved. Yes, there were likely many mammoths in Siberia... but were all suddenly frozen? Probably not.
~mantis
Discovery Channnel ran an episode about a year ago where a group of scientists went to a Siberian Glacier looking to find another intact Mammoth. At that time they found quite a few decomposed corpse, but not the quality specimen they were in search of. What they need is the preseved sperm so that we can try bring out a resesive gene that they believe other existing elephants have from the Mammoth. Some background to this ... There was an elephant that was studied sometime within the last 20 years that had very simliar charetaristics to that of a Mammoth, though they have been extinct for 20,000 years. A larger raised forhead really... As for cloning I am not sure if the intent was to try and replicate the animal, though it seems logical to do given the situation. It was inevitable that we would find another if we kept looking ;) I know my spelling sux, please fogive.
d00d, if Darrell Hannah is even a close rep. to what early cave women looked like then I am ready to regress back to animal fur and caves! ;) Uga Booga...
I think you are confusing Copernicus and Galileo.
But, duh, that was before they succeeded in getting the carcass out of the ice. Can we have a single freaking slashdot update, once, where some bozo doesn't ask "didn't we talk about this already"?
Otherwise I'm going to start posting "didn't we talk about this already?" posts in every Linux-vs-Microsoft thread, I swear.
Sheesh. You'd think people paid to use the place.
----
Lake Effect, a weblog
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
So how long until they're hunted for ivory or for medicinal purposes for the Chinese?
You know, with enough of those things, I bet you could make a great beowulf cluster! G
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
There was Noah and his wife. Then, there were his 3 sons Shem, Ham, and Japeth along with their wives. That is 8 people assuming that each man only had 1 wife.
There's a really great movie idea in the making here.
A mammoth, recently resurrected to glorious fanfare and world-wide acclaim, soon finds himself alone in the City, where even the bright lights, the hookers and the orange circus peanuts can't appease the emptiness he feels inside, until suddenly, just when he's just about to end it all by snorting up a drum full of drain-cleaner, he get's a mysterious phone call from a wacky Russian scientist (played by Christopher Lloyd), who turns out to be the one that found his 'mother' in the first place, but who got brushed aside by the media and science establishment alike in the initial fanfare of the find. He's found another carcass, in even better condition than the first, but if the world finds out about it, it could be taken away, and our hero would lose his only chance at finding True Love. The Wacky Scientist has a plan, but no, it's impossible...or is it?...
This movie proposal is, of course, released and available for use under the terms and conditions of the GPL.
**>>BELCH
I am sorry pal, but very bad and very dangerous ideas are frequently paid attention once they get enough air-time (take, for example, your friend and mine, Hitler).
Call it elitist, call it anti-Christian, call it what you like... but when someone even THINKS that Earth is only 6,000 years old I (and everyone else) has a right to call that idea plain...
S-T-U-P-I-D.
~mantis
This is probably offtopic, but isn't this exactly what was being done in Jurassic park? There blood from dinosaurs was used to provide DNA, here its a wooly mammoth. What the hell happens if something goes wrong? And this isn't an isolated Cuban island either.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Of course if F. It's an American comment. Don't you know they re the only ones that still use that silly imperial system...
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
If there are any preserved Neanderthals, clone them. I'd be more interested in the differences between us and all the other humanoids we killed off.
:-)
You're in luck! There are still some Young-Earth Creationists (YECs) around; you can examine these fossils instead. These creatures have the same mental prowess of our Neanderthal ancestors, and you can examine them without all of that digging!
Whatta deal!
The "luddite/anti-nuke/anti-genetic-science crowd" is not trying to infect public education and teach our children that the entire universe is 6000 years old. They are not going onto the radio airwaves and proclaiming that God wants us to butcher homosexuals a dozen at a time. Some beliefs are stupider and more dangerous than others. Some beliefs deserve more vigorous examination than others. And yes, some beliefs deserve to be "piled on."
(No, I'm not claiming that the beliefs I listed above are held by average Christians. It's not average Christians that come under attack. It's the fundamentalist zealots and their dangerous views. And they deserve attacks. IMHO.)
-- just another child of the 60's
I don't think we need to worry about a population explosion of cloned mammoths bringing on ecological disaster. Remember, these are *clones*, and as such will have the same configuration of X and Y chromosomes as the original organism.
So, if the one the one they dug up is male, all clones will be male. If it was female, all of the clones will be female. The only way we could get a population explosion would be if we cloned thousands of mammoths. Since the process is difficult and expensive, I don't think that is very likely.
It will be very interesting to see if a cloned mammoth would be able to interbreed with a modern elephant. Some of these hybrids (like mules) are sterile, but some others are fertile. That's the only way I could imagine herds of mammoths taking over the planet.
If you'd have read a little more on the article, they only have a male, ie Mammoth sperm. The article suggest creating a Mammoth-Elephant hybrid using intact sperm, or cloning the existing mammoth with Elephant reproductive parts.
I think the main reason for this re introductio of a species is for one, to prove we can do it, and two, to provide mankind with another beast of burdon. Sure I think animals should be free to do as they please, but some countries depend on things like this (Note that story about the elephant that stepped on a landmine in Cambodia).
Regardless, I'd like to see the follow ups on this at it is a useful challenge for "infant technology"
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
Well duh, isn't that what I said. It'll have some initial effect, but it doesn't matter in the long run.
Yes, there were likely many mammoths in Siberia... but were all suddenly frozen? Probably not.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. You can't have a bunch of mammoths being suddenly frozen? WTF?
I routinely freeze an array of ice cubes in the freezer, so why can't several wooly mammoths be frozen at the same time?
Damn, I knew I should have checked before posting! Anyway, point is the same. The Church can be VERY persuasive.
Sig goes here
We already have enough problems with cows and at least they aren't large enough to trample or eat people.
:(
Gimme a break. I don't go around fucking eating people. WTF?
And I resent that comparison with a cow. I've never seen a "new-age cow", nor would I care to. But what I do want is a little respect.
w/m
-- I'm not a freak show, I'm a mammal. --
Currently, if you wanted to amplify individual chromosomes, (for genetic screening) it is possible to create transgenic cell lines from common(ly used) cell types. If you want a lot of a single chromosome you can introduce it into cell lines that grow well under known conditions, and screen for stable transformants containing whole chromosomes. The problem may lie in whether or not the chromosome is modified in undetectable ways (by being in a different species host). Creating elephant oocyte hybrids would be best, with the complete replacement of the normal chromosomal complement being the goal. This kind of procedure is now well understood, but we need someone who has worked with elephant cells to provide the basic materials and expertise to accomplish the goal.
Ok, kids... let's review:
Original post says thousands of mammoths found in Siberia. Original post says, "How the hell did thousands of mammoths all freeze at the same time?".
I then say, "Dude, you are missing steps in logic. Cuz thousands of mammoth remains were found in Siberia, and this particular mammoth was found frozen solid in one piece does not necessarily lead to LOGICALLY to the assumption that ALL of the mammoths were frozen solid after they died in ponds and it snowed quickly thereafter."
I concede that thousands of mammoths have been foudn in Siberia. I concede that some of them froze. I even concede that it is possible that a "bunch" froze. I DO NOT concede that they all fell dead at once and that they all soon thereafter froze solid.
A similar (although different) leap of logic can be illustrated with your ice cubes. Over the years I am sure you have frozen thousands of ice cubes, and I am sure that you have also found all of those ice cubes in your freezer. Does that mean your freezer can hold thousands of ice cubes? No.
~mantis
Satan is dead - Quintron, The amazing spellcaster and one man band
Ok... you don't eat people... but what do you have to say to the trampling, hmmmmm?
~mantis
"And what about a host? An elephant? And is the DNA in tact?"
There was mention of elephants as possible (and pretty much the only potential) hosts. There was also mention that the DNA might not be in tact but that if it is an elephant egg would likely be used.
~mantis
Did you notice that the Dolly clone was NOT the same size? There was a BIG size difference. Identical twins are usually about the same size. OK so they shared the same womb and womb environment, but I doubt such a significant size difference can be explained by different womb environments.
Are you a complete idiot?
First off, Dolly and Dolly's clone are NOT TWINS! Twins implies birth together. Dolly is two years (?) or so older than the clone. Could this possibly explain size difference? Hmmmm?
And Mitochondrial DNA has next to no effect on the animal's development. If you really cared, you could have the mDNA identical simply by:
a) using fertilized eggs from the animal to be cloned to transplant into as well as from (assuming it's female).
b) same as above, but using fertilized eggs from the mother of the clone to transplant into (since mDNA are passed through the mother's side only).
Most people agree that it doesn't really matter that much.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I have yet to see a creationist review of *anything* that did not assume that the bible was the absolute truth... and then use the contents of the bible to argue their point.
I haven't seen any evidence at all that would tend to support creationism that doesn't assume the existance of a god.
Recursive logic just doesn't work. If you could show any evidence (On the 'net... URLs would be nice) that tends to support creationism without the usage of self-referencing logic or not-backed-up asumptions -- that would be nice.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Let's go back further, though. Adam and Eve. If all genetic material came from those two people, we'd have been extremely inbred.
Yet Another Place where the bible goes against logic (don't get me started on where the water from the 'great flood' came from or went).
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
God is dead, and noone cares. - T. Reznor
What puzzles me is how creationists can possibly think that christianity is true... There were equally valid religions before the chritianity/judaism/islam* block (*they're all pretty similar really). What makes christianity any more valid than the Roman Pantheon, or the Greek Pantheon, or Hindu, or Sumerian, or Aborigine, or Pagan Irish, or Mayan, or Egyptian, or any other of the innumerable religions that exist (many of which were popular when christianity was just a twinkling in a power-mad control-freak would-be priest's eye...) The basis of religion is unquestioning faith. That is to say, by definition, belief in the absence of proof. Science has no absolute truths - there are only theorems, that, if invalidated, are discarded. What has relgion done for us? millenia of stupid wars, suppresion of the social and intellectual development of the populace, etc, etc. What has science? Pretty much the entire modern world, good and bad - but you certainly wouldn't even be reading this without it. www.infidels.org www.lucifer.com
It could evolve then the city would be in a wreck! How did it get on so many continents and survived this long without the T-rex eating it or other meat eating animals! I say its trouble and wont do good, and how about the viruses it has, what if it is transmited into the worlds air and it is infectious to all other organisms?! Oh well, what the hell. Clone the thing if you succeed and it kills, I'll be AWAY from Siberia, who knows, the ice has kept the thing preserved for this long, it'll probabally not even get to these other cold parts!
We didn't bring the mammoths to extinction? The issue isn't settled yet, but I'd bet we were the most important factor. The trend in paleontology seems to be that most such recent extinctions of large animals are well correlated with the arrival of humans in the area.
Well, I must admit I do enjoy a good trampling. *blush*
-- I'm not a freak show, I'm a mammal. --
http://www.beowulf.org
And evolution itself is a dogma at least as strong as that in any religion.
That "dogma" is called science. It consists of taking quantitative observations and coming up with a theory to explain them all consistently. Examples of such theories are Newton's theory of gravity, einstein's e=mc^2, Galileo's theories of planetary bodies, etc. The important thing is that the theory has to be *quantitative* AND consistently explain the observation.
Now, if you call that a dogma, then you're mistaken, for no scientific theory is held on faith. Indeed, many theories are discarded when a better one is discovered which more accurately predicts the universe.
OTOH, religion is based on faith, and it's not quantitative. That itself makes it totally useless for explaining anything, other than as a means of reassuring your own faith. For example - creationists don't have a consistent, quantitatively established theory. When astrophysics shows us cleary that the Universe is older than 6,000 years, creationists quickly point out that a "year" could be millions of years in the lords viewpoint.
Just read any of the creationist arguments for "where all the flood water went" for an amusing exercise in bad math.
Ultimately, you can't compare creationism with any scientific theory because the former is vague and doesn't have to explain anything consistently, while the latter is the opposite.
Here, let's try this - I hereby propose that the entire universe consists of turtles sitting on other turtles in a recursive array. Now prove me wrong. I can easily come up with vague justifications to brush away any flaw you point out in this theory (why can't we see the turtles? they emit a different wavelength of radiation beyond the visible spectrum).
See what I mean? You can always start off with a theory, ANY theory, and explain it vaguely.
Try doing it quantitatively, gimme some URLs (not the comically math-deficient ones with incorrect multiplication), let's see some evidence.
In fact, the only people I know who have done honest, well-balanced reviews of the evidence on both sides happen to be creationists, since,
unfortunately, evolutionists tend to dismiss creation as impossible before bothering to look at the facts that support that position.
Yeah, they also dismiss Islamic scholars , scientologists, rabbis, hari krishnas, and other assorted wise men. We're talking about evidence here, not some airy nebulous theory for the political balancing and appeasing of everyone's sense of importance.
Don't worry, scientists aren't ignoring you. If you come up with a valid provable theory which stands up to scrutiny, nobody will dismiss it. The problem is that every wacko thinks he has it right and the "scientists are unfairly ignoring my brilliant theory!"
w/m
-- I'm not a freak show, I'm a mammal. --
Actually, Noah had three sons. Ham, Shem, and Japheth. One was black, one white, and the other in between. Biblically speaking, this is when the human species was subdevided into three races.
In balance basically means that if we were to sit back, not touch the environment around us (okay, so that would mean that all humans would have to pack their stuff up and leave earth, or a massive, human-only genocide would take place), nature could survive on its own for an indefinate amount of time (barring any natural disasters).
I don't know how many creatures go extinct each day... My guess is that it's more like a sub-species (say for example, a type of wolf, not an entire species) goes extinct about one sub-species for every month. My numbers are probably way off, but I'm just speculating
See the BBC SciTech article for more info.
That would be awesome!!! I'd probably find a big bag of coke and snort at least as much as George W. Bush, Jr., did before announcing that what he did or did not do does not matter. Then I'd hang out with my pal the only wooly mammoth left in the world (if I was still alive after all that coke). If my pal Wooly seemed overly lonely and I couldn't figure out any way to help him, then I'd shoot him to put him out of his misery and eat his uncooked flesh with a nice red wine (and some cheese sauce) (cause that's real gourmet) (and definitely no broccoli cause plants have feelings too). After that, I'd start feeling sorry for myself because I was so lonely without other people and I'd think about my creationist god and ask silly questions like why?, and forsaken much?, and got rapture? Who knows what I'd do then .... hmmm, probably play with my other friend but he isn't too responsive without vaginal (though I'm sure anal would work to) orifices.... On second thought, let's not go there. Hypothetical world is a silly place. (you're right drix, it is f*cked up; i should have stopped when i had the chance...) ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......
I suppose a lot depends on how far down the thing was buried. If it was buried far down enough to be relatively free from UV radiation... The freezing ought to have stopped most chemical reactions.
BTW: This is not the first time they've dug up one of these. The Russians dug one up a couple of decades in Siberia. It must have been in pretty good shape, too, because being less then scientifically minded, they ate it. (Wish I could find a reference to this. This is all from my faulty memory.)
The cake is a pie
Mammoths had large brains and, like elephants, are likely to have been relatively intelligent.
Thank you, kind sir.
Indeed, I find these laudable words about my rich culture quite comforting, in comparison with the harsh words and ridicule heaped out, almost as if the wooly mammoth is a freak show for the entertainment of bored cubicle geeks.
The question is, how would we teach an animal these skills if we have no living examples of how they act in the wild?
Good question. The answer is - TV. I've found it to be a great source of information, and the stuff I see on Jerry Springer is quite admirable in terms of advanced human techniques at banging into things and trampling around.
The Wooly Mammoth.
-- I'm not a freak show, I'm a mammal. --
Well, no more than 6,000-10,000 years, right?
In Michner's _Centennial_ (nothing new!) ranchers are supposed to be smuggling fetuses of breeds they can't bring into the US in rabbit wombs. Then transplanting them in cows. Mayo is looking at doing this with humans as an alternative to abortions. And because of pre-natal bonding advantages for adoptive parents.
Actually, no, and this is one of the areas where the creationists have a very valid point, especially with the acceptance of the punctuated equilibrium theory among the evolutionists.
(Punctuated equilibrium (PE) was added to evolutionary theory to address the concern that there are a distinct lack of in-between forms in the fossil record, particularly w.r.t. the Cambrian explosion, where thousands of new species appeared at once with no transitional fossils. PE says that things remain stable for a long time, then something disturbs the equilibrium, and life rapidly adapts completely new forms.)
If this is true, then species transitions happen relatively quickly, and a very small number of the mutant species would parent an entire family tree. This should, in theory, result in in-breeding/genetic vigor problems. The fact that it doesn't is a point in the creationists favor. On the other hand, an active and perfect Creator would create a perfect example of the species, which would not (at least initially) be subject to the degradations we see as a result of in-breeding today.
I'm open-minded enough to recognize that *WE DON'T KNOW* how things came to be, and I recognize that both the evolutionists and the creationists have some very valid points. The creationists have in thier favor the fact that thier theory does gracefully explain things that otherwise present significant problems, and the universe certainly seems to show evidence of design. Keep an open mind, and you'll find that the creation theories have thier own strength areas that are different, but at least as compelling as, the evolutionary theories.
P.S.: Don't know for sure about the water for the flood came from, but you might want to check out this article from last month's New Scientist about where they may still be receding... (See, those creationists may not be so kooky as you think!)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
This is fairly narrow-minded. You wouldn't be reading this without religion, either. You've completely ignored the Renaissance, which while resulting in huge advances in science and art, was motivated by a desire to illustrate the glory of god. First thing printed on the Guttenberg press? A bible. Copernicus discovery of heliocentricity? Funded by the Pope for a revised calender. (Kept the calender, discarded heliocentricty, the church was the catalyst for heliocentricity however.) Religion has always played the motivator to science's results. Your point of what religion is the true religion is foolish. Christianity, Judism, and Islam are all based on the same god, and I know little to nothing about all the other religions you mentioned. It comes to what each individual believes. If you think sacrificing dogs to Satan is wrong, well you're probably not going to be a Satanist. If you believe Jesus Christ is the son of god though some sort of introspection then that's what's right for you. And as far as the absense of proof, just look around you. I have difficulty believing that gravity, time and all these other forces of nature were created by accident and created in such a way to make it hospitable to life. I have the same difficulty believing that our intelligence has reached it's current level purely through evolution. Whether it's god or aliens, humans are incredibly intelligent considereing we evolved from some sort of primordial ooze. Anyway, load up a picture of one of those nice phyallic gothic cathedrals, what a magnificent combination of science and religion.
Deitheres
-- .sig files go when they die?
Child: Mommy, where do
Mother: HELL! Straight to hell!
I've never been the same since.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
Mammoths are much like present-day elephants
I would say more like big hairy gorrilas with huge tusks. But you're entitled to your opinion.
These things combine to give introduced species an edge in their new, predator-free environments. They're not likely to be a problem in the case of wooly mammoths.
Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. Or in this case - don't count your mammoths before they are thawed. I'm afraid you do not understand the gentle grace and awesome power of my species. True, not much to look at, and kinda ugly from certain angles. But when mammoths are enraged, we are extremely difficult to stop. Jurassic Park wouldn't hold a candle to a bunch of mammoths.
Cloned wooly mammoths would probably not be released into the wild right away, but kept in zoos, or penned up on research farms for study.
That's what you think. Frankly, this would be both gruesome and terribly cruel, but that's just my perspective.
Given their slow rate of reproduction, it'd be a very long time before there were enough of them to have much of an impact on their environment.
Oy, it's possible to add rabbit genes, and then just sit back and watch the fun. Run, mammoth, run!
Wooly Mammoth.
-- I'm not a freak show, I'm a mammal. --
The scientists involved faked the tusk part by inserting them for the helicopter lift. This to add a bit more drama since it was Discovery who funded the excavation.
Probably the block contains the major part of the mammoths bones but it'll certainly be fairly decomposed. And for sure it has been a source of food for the local predators at the time.
I watched a special on the history chan. dealing with mummification in egypt. The problem with trying to get DNA from mummies or other artifacts is that you only get about 150 unit chains at best. That is very small compared to what we can get from the living. I'm scared to think what animals we might have to execute because they "didn't turn out right". Bad/Old DNA will have to be researched more I feal.
SL33ZE, MCSD
em: joedipshit@hotmail.com
SL33ZE - Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
i guess it would be nice to have something wooly around,
now that chewie's dead and all...
-a
first to say "taste like chicken!"
*grin*
btw, has anyone ever had chicken-fried iguana (while we're on the subject). seems that they're raisin' iguana like livestock in central america now.
Cloning is not perfected by any means. And it's already been determined that Dolly wasn't an exact clone. The mitocondrial DNA (I think this is it) was from the cell that Dolly's DNA was moved into. While the technique used to clone Dolly is supposed to be quite easy, it isn't terribly reliable. And this is with nice fresh DNA. Who knows about stuff from an animal that's been dead for a long time, and not intentionally preserved.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
Cloned wooly mammoths would probably not be released into the wild right away, but kept in zoos, or penned up on research farms for study
Lately there's been a fair amount of evidence that the more intelligent of the mammals have something akin to "culture". That is, much of what they do is learned behavior. Mammoths had large brains and, like elephants, are likely to have been relatively intelligent. It is not at all outlandish to think that some of what the behaviors that mammoth's needed to survive was learned from prior generations. We certainly see that with some animals that we try to save today. Animals raised in captivity often have little idea how to survive in the wild. The question is, how would we teach an animal these skills if we have no living examples of how they act in the wild? My suspicion is that if we did manage to clone these things, they'd be doomed to captivity. We wouldn't be able to equipe them to survive in the wild.
And, of course, they went extinct, so obviously they weren't originally equiped to deal with "the wild". Though my suspicion is that the element of "the wild" they couldn't adapt to was the eskimo.
One of the fascinating things about the effect of human beings on evolution is that they have essentially made large size a negative survival trait. Wolves are nearly extinct in the US, while coyotes have expanded their range dramatically. Both Australia and North America saw massive die-offs of their largest mammals in fairly recent history.
The cake is a pie
If you read Immanuel Velikovsky's Earth in Upheaval instead of just speculating, then you'll find out that this is nothing new. Back in the 1950's a group of researchers in Siberia discovered a "suddenly-frozen" woolly mammoth (exposed tusks). They pulled it out of the ground, thawed it out and fed it to their dogs!
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I don't know how many cells a wooly mammoth has, but I think you can do some pretty good statistical analysis if you have the computing resources, the money and the time necessary.
OTOH, maybe the resources necessary are a bit too much.
What in the world are you talking about? Have you got flying monkeys up your butt or what?
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1. 4.5 billion year old trees? I don't think so.
2. Carbon dating doesn't work. The half-life is too short.
3. The shift in the earth's axis? Huh? Care to explain?
4. The change in the northern celestial pole? Never heard this as evidence before. Please explain.
Evidence for a young earth...
1. Population of earth is only 5 billion. Start with 2, then calculate the population growth rate over 6000 years. It's amazing close to 5 billion.
2. The density of Dead Sea. If the earth was "old" the Dead Sea would be a lot more saturated.
3. If the earth is old, where are all the bones?
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It's my understanding that hundreds, if not thousands of wooly mammoths have been discovered in Siberia. How is it possible that they all froze so quickly?
The report says this mammoth died by a pond, because of all the plant life found. So what's the process?
1. Mammoth is eating plant life by pond and dies of unknown causes.
2. Twenty feet of snow immediately fall on mammoth before it has a chance to decompose or be eaten by some other creature.
3. It never thaws.
4. This happens to hundreds or thousands of different mammoths.
Does this not make sense to anyone else?
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Indian elephants and mammoths are possibly as close as horses and zebras, so it is not insurmountable. There has been some speculation of surviving mammoths in India, not the hairy sort, but something else. They found some very odd elephants that looked like something thought to be even older than mammoths, but no DNA comparisons have been done The chief problem will be racemization of the DNA. Even if the meat is intact and edible, the DNA may have begun to decay. That is why in Jurassic Park, they were running sequencers and synthesizing DNA, with frog DNA to fill the gaps (they should have used ostrich DNA, not frog) The Wrangel Island dwarf mammoths survived until at least 4,000 years ago, so their DNA would be in better shape, if we can find frozen remainse in good condition. Hybrids with Indian elephants may or may not work. If they could find a male and a female with viable gammetes they might have a chance, though that might increase the chances of miscarriage. Russians have already tried from less-well-preserved mammoths and failed, the elephants, I believe, miscarried.
I'm sure there is a significant DNA degradation in the mummification process. But the process, as neat as it is, is nowhere near as good as the "deep freeze" that the mammoth has been kept in. One would think that this would lead to significantly higher "quality" DNA, no?
Deitheres
-- .sig files go when they die?
Child: Mommy, where do
Mother: HELL! Straight to hell!
I've never been the same since.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
Hey, lets cheer the advances that Hitler and his murderous thugs brought us in their medical experiments on Concentration camp prisoners why don't we?? And while we're at it, I guess we can pat ourselves on the back for what Slavery has brought us...a new moral enlightenment. In the world of stupid posts regarding religion this reigns supreme. Religion was a motivator to sciences results because they tried so hard to suppress it. Try to suppress a cause, and you'll just bring out the zealots. Do we then give credit to the suppressor? His point regarding the multiplicity of other religions was certainly valid. The fact that there were hundreds of other religions preceding Christianity just shows that all that differentiates it was that it was the only religion that succeeded with the Worlds greatest Marketing campaign. Not that it was any more valid than the others. Were the Spice Girls a great group just because they packed stadiums?? No. Were they the essence of rock and roll? No. PR and overhype plain and simple. Oh and by the way, regarding your Bible. I learned some very interesting things recently regarding that lump of fiction. Seems that some Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered a few years ago that are the closest thing to the "original" Bible. Apparently a monk had translated a copy of one of the scrolls into Latin or Greek (I forget which one). One of the lines translated from it described a young woman who had given birth to Jesus. She was described as being pious or something similar. This woman, came to be known as the Virgin Mary. Why the Virgin part??? Well during the definitive translation (which all present day Bibles are based) by the learned monk, he had interpreted these lines about her being pious, and given the choking religious mores of the day, decided that he would translate this as though the original text had said she was a Virgin. In other words, he assumed as much..well how can you have a virgin give birth to a child....and thus was born the famed Immaculate Conception. A whole ideology wrapped around a mis-translation. What a crock of shit. I don't have the time to address the litany of other assumptions you posit in your argument. Wake up to the real world. Religion is a crutch for weak-minded people.
No, that wouldn't have happened. Nature tend to regulate itself, you know...
See, those creationists may not be so kooky as you think!
It's always sound to be sceptical about all theories, that much I can agree with you. But, while most scientists that study evolution are sceptical, almost no creationists are. Disregarding all the details about the theories I find it far more open minded to study a phenomenon, and then formulate a theory, as Darwin did, than to adopt a dogma and then try to convince others...
Discover did a feature article on this story back in March. Then, they hypothesized that a wooly mammoth could realistically be born normally in a domestic elephant. Note: These are not tortured or abused as others may have implied, they don't even exist yet. But when they do, through our acts of god, they sure will be pretty.
Why bring them back? People of different ethnic heritage can't get along, let alone, I imagine, those of a different species. I say we exhume Lincoln and clone him. Then we could model new $5 bills, and witness his incredible dancing.
even if it was, the taste would be horrible because of the "freezer burnt" effect. who wants stale wooly mammoth? not me, i'll just stick with pre-processed bovine.
That's what I thought.
~mantis
What we are doing could potentially ruin our ecosystem. All creatures have methods of adaptation. While we hear propaganda from both sides of the eco-coin, the truth is the ecosystem is in balance right now. Introducing an element that was once part of it, but is no longer is does just as much harm to an ecosystem as introducing a specimen that has never been there at all. If we re-introduce Wooly Mammoths into nature, we don't know how well they will adapt, and we don't know how well nature will adapt around them.
For all we know, this could be something that completly devistates the earth. Long shot, but if we keep tinkering...
can you export a cloned mammoth outside the usa?
Can your IM do this?
Everyone knows what MCSD (Microsoft Certififed System Designers) are like.. peabrained and too shortsighted to relaize that the mammoth is STILL in russia.. its not going to miss every city half way around the world just to get to SF.. I think itll go to Redmond first because thats where it knows all evil comes from...
I wrote that if you were to take each seperate means of dating and put all the evidence together, then you could conclude that the world is around 4.5 billion years old. I did not state that carbon 14 was used to date rocks. It is only good for more geoligically recent events and items.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
There are a number of tales from survivors of the soviet gulag where chain gangs would find a mammoth while digging a ditch and would eat the thing on the spot. No comment on how it tasted as far as I can recall. Perhaps some historian out there can add to this.
I remember reading the same thing.. I don't know if it was on slashdot or I saw it on the news, but I remember it, and it was actually quite a long time ago. At least 2 weeks ago.. Oh well..
The article in question was "Cloning Another Extinct Species". The article in question referred to cloning an extinct tiger, and also referenced an earlier Slashdot article about cloning extinct Huia bird, but mammoths were brought up in the commentary; that might be where you're getting confused.
Jay (=
...seems that they're raisin' iguana like livestock in central america now.
What's this "now" sh1t? They've been doin' that for hundreds if not thousands of years!
Carbon dating showed that it was 3,000 years old, not 20,000 (according to the article). That's in the accurate range of carbon dating, since we have known-age tests from that long ago. (Darn, that was RECENT.)
I hope they post followups about what they find. That's a BIG freezer out there! What was the diet of the old wooly mammoths? How did this one die? So many cool questions...
-Billy
Bringing back the wooly mammoth population is pretty much a statistical impossiblity, even with a subject to clone.
Why? Well, for starters, it's a subject. Without at least one male and one female, there's not going to be much hope for that species.
Let's say we overcome that obstacle, though, and engineer a mammoth of opposite gender to the one that was found. You've still got the problem that the mammoths are essentially twins. Mate them, and you've got a handful of inbred mammoths. Actually, this goes beyond inbreeding, because even among siblings there's some genetic variance; between these mammoths there would be none. Eventually you'd get to the point where no mammoths could survive for very long, and the species goes extinct a second time.
Theoretically you could engineer enough differences into many clones and start the species that way. Just one problem: to do that you have to understand the genome. To understand the genome you need living mammoths, so you're in a chicken-and-egg situation.
Maybe if scientists found a couple hundred more mammoths, then we might have something feasible. But to try with only one specimen simply isn't going to work.
Argghh! We've been through this.
Of course the mitochondrial DNA was from the host cell. They knew it would be and didn't really care. It's not a big thing. Mitochondria are mitochondria, they change tranportable blood fuel into usable cell fuel (I'm just not up to big words like glucose tonight). A mammoth with modern elephant (or cow, or pig, or sheep) mitochondria is a mammoth as far as I'm concerned.
(now that that's out of my system...)
The Dolly technique is crusty in other ways, but it should work well enough to get some hairy elephants walking around northern Asia. Well, not quite the Dolly technique... this requires something a little more complicated, but IMHO doable in a year or two with enough money (or ten years from now in somebody's back yard).
I'd agree with you on the DNA bit, but they've got a whole mammoth. That's one heck of a DNA sample! They should be able to patch up the cracks with that big a sample.
Animals have given birth to implanted fetuses of other species. I can't remember the exact details of an example... I think there was a rare type of cat that another cat of a common species gave birth to...
All I gotta say is that I wouldn't want to be the janitor that works at the cloning lab when that mammoth is brought in. I mean, you've seen how much a COW can leave behind.. just imagine a prehistorical version of a cow and well... if you've ever driven through the countryside during the spring... you know what I mean....
--
to-MAY-to to-MAH-to
While inbreeding can cause problems, often severe ones, it is not a death sentence. You can create an entire population from a single pair of siblings. Release a mating pair of rabbits on an island with no predators and lots of food, and come back in a few years; if you don't find rabbits, you probably won't find anything green either.
And I'm not talking ethics here...
Why would you use an infant technology to create copies of dead Mammoths if there was a possibility that they had pure, frozen GAMETES?
With the in-vitro fertilization we have today,
Here's a recipe for baby Mammoth:
Preheat Elephant Uterus to 100 degrees or so,
1 part frozen Mammoth sperm
1 frozen Mammoth egg,
thaw,
stir,
let incubate in a test tube for a short while, place in elephant uterus and let bake for 1.5 years or so.
We've had the technology to do this for quite some time, again, it's just a matter whether the gamete material has decayed in the past 3,000 years. But from what I know, sperm and eggs are frozen and thawed all the time without damage.
---------------
If stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?
duh. :]
I wonder what the European community would say to having mammoth instead of beef. Given their recent reactions to genetically engineered products of any kind whatsoever, I would guess that the product would not be received with kindness.
Wow. I'd hate to see that coming at me at full speed.
Using the mammoth as a food source might be helpful to our food supply. Mammoths, being much bigger than cows, could provide more food, as well as textiles and various other products. They can probably also survive in more adverse climates than cattle and other livestock, increasing their usability. Land deemed otherwise unusable could be used for grazing and keeping mammoth herds, which would alleviate some of the growing population without growing resources problem.
..a fundamental drive amongst scientists everywhere: the urgent need to accomplish something because we can (specifically, to prove this notion), not necessarily because we should (or can even find a useful application of the discovery that would validate the time and effort expended).
Whether or not the mammoth would be "tortured" is not an argument I care to play into (especially since arguments on such topics seem to be especially shallow), but I might point out that the more animals we are able to clone, the closer we get to cloning an actual human, which is something that certainly sparks a lot of interest among scientists and the world at large.
~ Kish
Sometimes it takes a 20,000 year old extinct mammoth to teach people how not to be stupid.
there is a story in the mining engineering department about a company that stumbled upon a frozen mammoth while digging a mine (this was about ten years ago?). Legally speaking they were suppossed to report it, but doing so would have certainly resulted in the shutting down of the mine and subsequent loss of jobs and money, thus instead a major barbeque was held in which they made mammoth steaks. Apparently they tasted awful (talk about serious freezer burn!)
Of course I'm certain fresh McMammoth burgers would be great.
LetterRip
I hope that's feirenhight (sp?), a uterus won't work too well when it's boiled.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
The techniques used in modern egg and sperm freezing are quite different from just laying down and freezing to death. It is quite hard to flash freeze something without damaging it. The people who freeze bodies for re-animation (ie. Walt DiZnee) do so with very complex processes involving liquid nitrogen and such. I'm no expert but I'd say that even if the mammoth had fallen into sub-zero water and been frozen relatively quickly it would still be too damaged to be used in modern fertilization processes.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
I just saw some footage of them lifting out the mammoth. A huge block of ice, with two tusks jutting outwards. Very amusing.
Timothy J. Agen -- The University of Minnesota, Morris
What do you mean "suffered human footprints"? Are we not inhabitants of this planet as well? I've got news... believe it or not we are part of nature too, although we sometimes disrupt severly what happens around us, just us being there does not ruin it.
I believe they once made a horse give birth to a zebra.
We would find mammoth parts (thou not this good of shape ) around
Naknek Alaska (and all over Bristol Bay region),
when I was in 9th grade in 1984, we went on a science
trip to the beach in town, and one kid found a rear wolly tooth,
looked just like in the book. talk about a REAL experiance...
don't know about the eating story....
also when they dug to put the sewer system in for the town, they
were always quietly carting away pails full of mammoth parts and tusks, for
fear of shutting down the project.
mike skup
:)
That quote's going straight to my mail sig:
``When you find the remains of the animal and you can touch them and even you can smell them when you use a hair dryer to melt the permafrost,'' - Dick Mol, discoverer of a frozen hairy mammoth.
I think you might be thinking of the "Huia" bird article from July:
7 220&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/07/21/123
-- www.bteg.com | bleh.n3.net | hac47.dhs.org
We Can't clone them.. we got rid of them because they can transport themselves around the place using there mind and f()ck humans in the arse.. thats why we killed them off in the first place. Mc Mammoths? but thats 'REAL' meat...
So far as I've read, one of the biggest obstacles in undertaking this whole cloning thing is that it's going to take a long time before we see any results. Assuming we are able to impregnate an elephant with a mammoth or half-mammoth zygote, the gestation period of an elephant is anywhere from 600 to 760 days(!), and it takes ten or twelve years for an elephant calf to reach sexual maturity. Even if everything goes according to plan, we won't know if we have a viable mammoth (or half-mammoth) for well over a decade after conception.
Regards,
You can download the video of them pulling it out and all that at Msnbc.com, fairly interesting. http://www.msnbc.com/news/292726.asp
The Tasmanian Wolf must have been extinct for a hell of a long time. I have lived here (Tassie)most of my life and never heard of it. Perhaps you mean the Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine. If you do, there is debate as to whether it is extinct or not. There have been reported sightings recently. There is wilderness here that has never suffered human footprints, so no one can say for certain if they are extinct or not. No doubt there are some /.'ers that will take pleasure in enlightening me though I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
Actually, we know how old the earth is by using radiometric dating on naturally occurring radioactive isotopes(not carbon-14 however) in meteorites and "moon dust" brought back by astronauts. There is strong evidence suggesting that the Earth was formed at the same time as the Moon, the other planets, and meteorites. Carbon dating would not wok because Carbon-14 has a half-life of only 5730 years. The oldest rock ever found on earth is 4.1 billion years old.
nah... I dont think I want one...
Did you notice that the Dolly clone was NOT the same size? There was a BIG size difference. Identical twins are usually about the same size. OK so they shared the same womb and womb environment, but I doubt such a significant size difference can be explained by different womb environments.
Transporting blood fuel to cell fuel is quite a foundation thing. If it's not as efficient or it's different then isn't there going to be some impact?
Think about it, it could be that the Mammoth (or say a Dino's) mitochondria was more efficient, so they can be bigger. And say when you stick in a normal elephant mitochondria the mammoth may need more food. Then you may get the wrong impression of mammoths- e.g. they couldn't get enough food so they died out blahblahblah. Heck maybe it'll be feeling tired all the time. OR maybe it could be hyperactive.
With different mitochondria the resulting mammoth could have a different lifespan. Maybe they could even die out before reaching sexual maturity.
I strongly feel we are underestimating the importance of mitochondria. Mitochondria are how ALL our cells get most of their energy. That sounds pretty significant to me.
Would we be able to extract the mammoth mitochondria DNA and use that? That would be more like the real thing.
Cheerio,
Link.
If there are any preserved Neanderthals, clone them. I'd be more interested in the differences between us and all the other humanoids we killed off.
If they clone the animal from incomplete DNA, will the get something approaching a hairy salamander? Now that would be interesting.
the thing anyone? any minute now it is going to split open and start digesting people.
> Of course, this is not flamebait - I don't necessarily hold the same opinion for animals which have been eradicated by humans.
Out of interest, why not?
OK, so we're the only species we know of to have evolved slashdot, but that's no reason to consider humans separately, especially *if* you think we 'evolved' from some other kind of mammal.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
'Samples have been sent to a laboratory for possible attempts to clone the animal, and
scientists will study the carcass to try to find out why and how it died.'
Alright, it was found well below the surface in an "icy grave." Now forgive me, but I think I can come up with a pretty accurate description of why and how it died. It fell in.
Are you really supposed to sit there and tell us that the world is only 6-10,000 years old? If that is the case then you miss the point of the article and the whole video. We know from corraboratory evidence how long it takes for certain events to happen like: tree rings, carbon dating, the movement of the continents, the shift of the earth's axis, the change of the northern celestial pole, etc. All together it means that the earth is 4.5 billion years old.
Getting back to the mammoth, the glacial permafrost was dated to 23,000 years ago. That is around the time of the last ice age when humans were coming out of Siberia and into North America through a land bridge in Alaska. Evolutions does not say how old a creature is or was, just how long ago a creature came into existnce and how long its specie lasted.
I will never understand why some people insist on clinging to children's fairy stories into adulthood. Must be comforting to think that man is the center of all things-- the truth would be terrifying.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
I am unsure what science you are using here. Mammoths were an adaptive change dating to the beginning of the last ice age. They died out towards the end, although their may have been a few kicking around still 5-6 thousand years ago.
Using generational dating from the King James Bible? That's questionable even among die hard creationists. I would suggest you take a closer look at the Talmud before jumping into any strange forays into highly dubious math.
Oh yeah and all the evidence the universe is billions of years old. I alway find it amazing that people seem to think that God is a rather limited thinker and something as complex and novel as evolution would utterly impossible for him to think up. Exactly why should we trust a text so crusty and old that we can't properly translate the original language. God is a lot smarter than you, me and the guy who wrote the Bible.
Thalasar
"Now i'm wondering, what do you do in a power failure? You have a huge, several thousand year old meat pack in your lab freezer, and it begins to defrost......."
In Khatanga it probably gets a bit colder
because you don't have the heat from the light
bulbs. My globe shows 4 places closer to the
pole, 3 nearby in Russia & Thule Greenland.
But the amazing thing about these frozen
mammoths is that there must have been a fairly
mild climate to produce enough veggies to keep
them going. Then it got much colder so suddenly
that they didn't rot or get eaten by scavengers
- and stayed that way since.
----------------------------------------
Do you want to restart your computer now?
and they took 2 years to dig it out? That seems really stupid to me, to leave it out in the open like that.
It makes you wonder how good they are at handling such a rare find.
Come on, don't be THAT impatient. What do you expect, drive through cloning of ancient extinct mammals? :)
BTW, elephants are the mammals w/ the longest pregnancy. At least, until now...
I'm skeptical about cloning ancient things from their DNA. DNA, even more than most macromolecules, needs to be constantly repaired. If you leave DNA sitting around it will slowly lose its properties. For example, UV light causes a process called pyrimidine dimerization where adjacent pyrimidine bases fuse in a specific manner. It is estimated that we have over 10,000 pyrimidine dimerization events that happen every day in our bodies, all of which are quickly and systematically repaired. This is simply one example of a way in which DNA can become damaged if not fixed constantly -- there are others. Something I never hear from the proponents of such techniques is how they get the info INTACT.
Granted, the DNA may be good enough to do RFLiPs or other restriction enzyme digestion technique and get reasonable data. But, and this is a big but, for a diploid organism to work properly we need (two) copies of each gene that will be used to work. I, as a biochemist, don't believe that we have the ability to isolate two copies of nearly perfect DNA....
-- Moondog
And what about a host? An elephant? And is the DNA in tact? I am opposed to the cloning of extinct animals. Reason being: I feel that things happen for a reason. Life revolves around the survival of the fittest. If you are not the fittest then in time you will die out. Of course, this is not flamebait - I don't necessarily hold the same opinion for animals which have been eradicated by humans. Also, I am not the worlds greatest historian and I don't know what it was that killed them off. We as a planet are currently not capable of looking after the animals that exist now. Until we can I don't feel that we should be introducing new species. Another point (sorry if I'm dragging on a bit here!), what if the reason that this animal died was because of some huge (yet unknown) disease? We bring it back to life and it could take out the human race. Using our current set of theories we believe a particular reason for the dissapearance o the species (sorry, once again I don't know specifics). But how many times have theories that were taken to be 100% fact been proved incorrect? The world is flat?
-={ Security does not exist - give up }=-
Without taking to task your bad jump of logic, I'll just point out that although mammoths probably existed as long as some few hundreds of thousands of years ago, their demise is linked to the end of the last Ice Age, roughly twelve to fifteen thousand years ago.
We've known this for a long time; a 23,000 year old mammoth fits perfectly with existing knowledge.
Or, more to the point, it's not mutually exclusive to say that mammoths were around 100,000 years ago, and that they were around 10,000 years ago.
Getting your premises correct _BEFORE_ coming to conclusions is usually considered a good idea.
Interesting point. After all, the states where evolution is banned are the ones renowned for inbreeding. :)
what is beowolf cluster ? i always see this words mentioned here.. what is it? and why is it funny? duh :)
black market as everyone would want to have their own 'piece' of a wooly mammoth.
We could have them designed according to our preferences. I can just see it now:
Ebay Auctions: Mammoths, Furby, Ricky Martin, Ricky Martin-like Mammoths.
I'm not sure a miniature mammoth would be a bad idea. It would look pretty cool, and I'd definitely like to have one romping around my apt. It might dig into the wall, though. That would really make the neighbors complain.
What if you could create a real tiny one, the size of a cubicle paperweight....now, THAT would be nifty.
Hey, it could even fit into the freezer!
"Carbon dating of bits taken from the mammoth at the site show it is 23,000 years old."
And then...in the other article.
"Until radio carbon dating showed mammoth remains found on Wrangel were 3,000 years old, scientists had thought they died out 10,000 years ago."
So this particular mammoth is 23K yrs old, while others have been found to be 3K yrs old.
Yep. Kinda throws a wrinkle into the evolutionist theories don't it ;-)
:)
:)
No, dumbass, it doesn't.
This is what amazes me about Christian wackos - they are so illiterate at basic math and science. Here, let me explain.
First of all, this particular mammoth was 23,000 yrs old (read the article again). The *latest* known mammoth specimen was 3000 years old.
Now...even if you do find a 3000 yr old mammoth, that does not invalidate evolution. You know why? Because there have been mammoths found which were 20,000 yrs old. Simple math should tell you that if the mammoths became extinct 3000 yrs ago, there were mammoths that lived earlier.
(Points repeated above to drum it in, since brainwashed skulls have been proved to be thicker.)
In any case, pointing to a recent specimen to invalidate evolution is obviously stupid - you could point to a monkey or yourself, which are both less than the biblical 6000 yrs.
The mamooth is not whole. One of the scientists has stated that this mamooth wasn't well preserved in the first place (it probably froze quite a while after death, giving time for decomposition to set in) and they probably only have hair, skin, bones and a couple of (recognisable) organs.
.... *CRUNCH*)
No, I can't spell!
-"Run to that wall until I tell you to stop"
(tagadum,tagadum,tagadum
-"stop...."
Where in the Bible does it say the earth is six thousand years old? It doesn't. Never. Due to history and dates you could say the Bible says man was created 6000 years ago, but last I looked Genesis 1:1 said "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Notice the period? Who's to say the earth wasn't around for thousand or millions of years before man was put on it. I'm a Creationist, and God very well may have somehow used evolution as part of the Creation, I'm not going to be an arrogant bastard and say I know (both sides are very much guilty of doing that) but I do not believe the world is only six thousand years old. Sorry, it just doesn't make sense.
DejaVu?? uh-oh, there's a glitch in the Matrix!
It is not as easy mitochondria float around happily in our cells and produce energy. I don't know mush about interactions cell--mitochondira, but I do know some things about state of the art research on them.
It is beleived that mitochodria started of as a parasite on our most pathetic and primitive ancestors. The relationship became symbiotic and we lived together forever after. But there is evidence that there are genes from the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that have jumped over to the nuclear DNA. The system needs those genes, but it has turned out to be somewhat irrelevant as to where they are found. When these gene-jumps have occured I do not know and I am not sure about the state of research on that.
It will indeed be interesting to se how different the mtDNA:s are in related species! And if there are differences, will they matter?
Lars
--
Reality or nothing.
Will we see the same uproar that we saw yesterday when someone posted a link to a video that was only in QuickTime 4 format?
they said they dated the creature to be 23,000 years old. Hmm, doesn't evolution say they were several hundred thousand or even a couple million years old?
/. hopping around with joy at the discovery of a 23,000 yr old intact specimen. Wake up, guys - if you're saying the universe is 6000 yrs old, this is almost living proof to the contrary.
:)
If a species has lived from 2 million BC to 20,000 BC, it will obviously have lived at 23,000 BC. Now, I realise the big numbers are confusing to you Christian zealots. Here, pay attention.
Evolution says mammoths lived a couple million years ago. Now, let's name a mammoth from this era A.
Now...A begat B, and B begat C, etc. etc.
....
and XYZ1 begat XYZ2, etc. and XYZ2 lived 23,000 years ago and died in a block of ice, wherefore he lay into the ice until his tusk was bumped unto by a good Siberian Samaritan.
Do you get the concept? If something lived a million years ago and became extinct 3000 yrs ago, you can find specimens of it which are a million yrs, 400,000 yrs, 10,000 yrs, or 3000 yrs old.
Is that such a difficult concept to grasp? There seem to be a bunch of creationists on
God, what a stupid, illiterate bunch.
Note - if you can't understand this post, buy a book on elementary math or don't breed. Or go live in Kansas.
It's both funny and insightful.