Jurrasic Park? Decoding of Mammoth Genome Might Lead to Resurrection

[KarlMarx]

This is too much like the movie, "Jurassic Park". The DNA of an extinct wooly mammoth is being sequenced. It is possible that the complete DNA sequence may be available in about a year. When that happens, it will be possible to create a woolly mammoth and some scientists are talking about bringing them back...

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/051219_mammoth_dna.html

 

[USViking]

It would be so cool to resurrect extinct
animals. Maybe the Sabretooth Tiger
will be next.

This paragraph from the link irritated
the hell out of me, though:

Mammoths roamed Siberia and America during the Pleistocene era, which ended 10,000 years ago as the last Ice Age retreated. Studies have shown that their demise was due largely to hunting by humans, not from climate change as one theory held.

How could they possibly tell that humans wiped
out the mammoths? And how can they explain how
the Asain and African elephants then survived,
both living amongst a denser human population,
especially in Asia?

Besides having to put up with legions of academics
who will not give the West credit for a damn thing,
we also have to put up with legions who now blame
humans for environmental misbehavior back in the
fircken Stone Age.

Next thing we know some tweed-brained professor
will say he has found a direct connection between
the mammoth-slayers and Messrs Bush and Cheney.

 

[007]

This is too much like the movie, "Jurassic Park". The DNA of an extinct wooly mammoth is being sequenced. It is possible that the complete DNA sequence may be available in about a year. When that happens, it will be possible to create a woolly mammoth and some scientists are talking about bringing them back...

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/051219_mammoth_dna.html

I know it has ethical ramifications as well as scientific, but, what would it hurt?

 

[archangel]

Good eating 'Wooly Mammoths'that is...I remember seeing a National Geographic special about finding a 'Wooly Mammoth' frozen...They were selling the delicacy for high price per pound!

 

[MtnBiker]

Who was selling the meat? The National Geographic people?

Sounds like an episode of Northern Exposure.

 

[MissileMan]

I know it has ethical ramifications as well as scientific, but, what would it hurt?

They could very well become a catalyst for a virus spreading from some other species to humans. The avian flu is at this time having difficulty moving from birds to humans. What if it had no difficulty moving to mammoths and then further mutated to become a killer mammothian flu that is easily passed to humans?

 

[archangel]

Who was selling the meat? The National Geographic people?

Sounds like an episode of Northern Exposure.

that could be true...being that I am not in a serious mode! :teeth:

 

[MtnBiker]

Preserved frozen remains of woolly mammoths have been found in the northern parts of Siberia. However, the popular notion that these bodies were 'flash frozen' and perfectly preserved is a myth propogated by pseudoscientists such as Immanuel Velikovsky. Preservation is a rare occurrence, essentially requiring the animal to have been buried rapidly in liquid or semi-solids such as silt, mud and icy water which then froze.

This may have occurred in a number of ways. Mammoths may have been trapped in bogs or quicksands and either died of starvation or exposure, or drowning if they sank under the surface. They may have fallen through frozen ice into small ponds or potholes, entombing them. Many are certainly known to have been killed in rivers, perhaps through being swept away by river floods; in one location, by the Berelekh River in Yakutia in Siberia, more than 9,000 bones from at least 156 individual mammoths have been found in a single spot, apparently having been swept there by the current.

To date, thirty-nine preserved bodies have been found, but only four of them are complete. In most cases the flesh shows signs of decay before its freezing and later desiccation. Stories abound about frozen mammoth corpses that were still edible once defrosted, but the original sources (e.g. William R. Farrand's article in Science 133 [March 17, 1961]:729-735) indicate that the corpses were in fact terribly decayed, and the stench so unbearable that only the dogs accompanying the finders showed any interest in the flesh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth

 

[archangel]

Preserved frozen remains of woolly mammoths have been found in the northern parts of Siberia. However, the popular notion that these bodies were 'flash frozen' and perfectly preserved is a myth propogated by pseudoscientists such as Immanuel Velikovsky. Preservation is a rare occurrence, essentially requiring the animal to have been buried rapidly in liquid or semi-solids such as silt, mud and icy water which then froze.

This may have occurred in a number of ways. Mammoths may have been trapped in bogs or quicksands and either died of starvation or exposure, or drowning if they sank under the surface. They may have fallen through frozen ice into small ponds or potholes, entombing them. Many are certainly known to have been killed in rivers, perhaps through being swept away by river floods; in one location, by the Berelekh River in Yakutia in Siberia, more than 9,000 bones from at least 156 individual mammoths have been found in a single spot, apparently having been swept there by the current.

To date, thirty-nine preserved bodies have been found, but only four of them are complete. In most cases the flesh shows signs of decay before its freezing and later desiccation. Stories abound about frozen mammoth corpses that were still edible once defrosted, but the original sources (e.g. William R. Farrand's article in Science 133 [March 17, 1961]:729-735) indicate that the corpses were in fact terribly decayed, and the stench so unbearable that only the dogs accompanying the finders showed any interest in the flesh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth

ther goes my idea about competing with "Burger King" I was going to introduce a "Wooly-Bully Mammoth Burger' to put em to shame!

 

[KarlMarx]

ther goes my idea about competing with "Burger King" I was going to introduce a "Wooly-Bully Mammoth Burger' to put em to shame!

<center><img src="http://www.alexross.com/TW1017-Bronto-To-Go.jpg"></center>

 

[KarlMarx]

They could very well become a catalyst for a virus spreading from some other species to humans. The avian flu is at this time having difficulty moving from birds to humans. What if it had no difficulty moving to mammoths and then further mutated to become a killer mammothian flu that is easily passed to humans?

That's a very good point. There are some scientist that want to use the new technology of DNA sequencing to resurrect other extinct animals e.g. the Tasmanian Tiger.

Perhaps the extinction of the wooly mammoth was due to man's interference, but the eco-system has long since adjusted to not having them around. I wonder if, by introducing an extinct animal back into the wild, we may risk causing ecological problems in addition to the introduction of disease.

 

[007]

They could very well become a catalyst for a virus spreading from some other species to humans. The avian flu is at this time having difficulty moving from birds to humans. What if it had no difficulty moving to mammoths and then further mutated to become a killer mammothian flu that is easily passed to humans?

They thought the same thing when they brought rocks and mineral samples back from the moon, so they quarantined them. I suppose they'd have to do the same with the Mammoth.

I can't see heards of them being reintroduced back into the wild. How would they create a heard if all they had was the DNA from one? How would they breed them without inbreeding?

 

[MissileMan]

They thought the same thing when they brought rocks and mineral samples back from the moon, so they quarantined them. I suppose they'd have to do the same with the Mammoth.

I can't see heards of them being reintroduced back into the wild. How would they create a heard if all they had was the DNA from one? How would they breed them without inbreeding?

Wouldn't they have to use a fertilized egg, say from an elephant and then insert the DNA into it? That could be used to produce both males and females. If the species produced is Woolius Joyceus, inbreeding is customary and should produce healthy, albeit slower progeny.

 

[manu1959]

Wouldn't they have to use a fertilized egg, say from an elephant and then insert the DNA into it? That could be used to produce both males and females. If the species produced is Woolius Joyceus, inbreeding is customary and should produce healthy, albeit slower progeny.

same difference....the entire human race is inbred....either creationism or evolution it all started with one.....

 

[KarlMarx]

They thought the same thing when they brought rocks and mineral samples back from the moon, so they quarantined them. I suppose they'd have to do the same with the Mammoth.

I can't see heards of them being reintroduced back into the wild. How would they create a heard if all they had was the DNA from one? How would they breed them without inbreeding?

The answer is that there are more than one. You can get DNA from bone, teeth, hair or anything that formed the animal. If you can find a complete sequence from bones, you can theoretically create clones of the original. Since there are lots and lots of mammoth bones, teeth, etc, in the world, getting DNA from several individuals is entirely possible.