happy now?
Posted on 05/18/2005 2:57:52 PM PDT by Boondock_Saint
Retrobreeding the Woolly Mammoth
Last year in the Soviet Union, Dr. Nikhovitch Yasmilov, head of veterinary research at the University of Irkutsk, got hold of some cells - including some ova, or egg cells - from a young woolly mammoth found frozen in Siberia. Although the cytoplasm - the material forming the bulk of the cell - was unhealthy, Yasmilov was able to extract the nuclei. He implanted these into viable cytoplasm from elsewhere in the mammoth.
Yasmilov continued his investigations by sending some cells to Dr. James Creak of MIT for testing. Creak heated the DNA from the mammoth ova until it dissolved into short lengths of code. After a number of false starts, he tried mixing it with a similarly prepared solution of the DNA of elephant sperm. The sections of elephant and mammoth code that matched "zipped themselves together," according to Creak, "as DNA is wont to do." This "paired DNA," representing the code common to elephants and woolly mammoths, was centrifuged off, leaving a residue of code that differed between the two species. The difference was less than 4.3%.
This started Creak thinking. The elephant has 56 chromosomes, and the mammoth has 58. "Now look at the donkey and the horse," Creak explained. "The donkey has 62 chromosomes and the horse has 64, yet horses and donkeys can mate to produce mules and hinnies. So is it unreasonable to suggest an elephant-mammoth hybrid?"
Creak communicated the good news at once to Yasmilov, who promptly set to work trying to fuse the nuclei from the mammoth ova, in their new cytoplasm, with sperm from an Asian elephant bull. As Creak points out, this delicate work requires highly skilled technicians. "In this profession," he observed, "people who can work with DNA and have it come out whole are traded like major-league baseball players, and they are even more valuable because the stakes are higher."
Creak expressed concern about the state of experimental science in general. "Some scientists like to proceed in small, carefully thought-out steps. They are like accountants, and might as well be," he complained. "I see science as high adventure, with enormous risks. Of course, the rewards are commensurately high if the gamble comes off."
Yasmilov attempted to artificially inseminate the mammoth ova with elephant sperm over 60 times before achieving fusion in eight samples. The resulting cell clusters were implanted in the wombs of Indian elephant cows. The timing of implantation is tricky, as the elephant cow must be in heat and proceed directly to the pregnant state after the embryo is implanted. Most of the elephant cows spontaneously miscarried, but two of the surrogate mothers carried to term, giving birth to the first known elephant-mammoth hybrids.
Scientists have classified the calves as woolly mammoths according to two criteria. First, the yellow-brown hair that covered the newborn did not fall out after birth, as it does in "modern" elephants. Second, the calves' jaw structure closely resembles that of mammoths.
Finding a scientific name for the young mammoth-elephant hybrid has been difficult. Professor Herman Hoffman of MIT's Linguistics Department suggests the word "mammontelephas" (it's singular), which he coined from the Russian "mammonth," or mammoth, and the Greek "elephas," or elephant. "It has - dare I say it? - almost a Byzantine ring," said Hoffman. Creak proposed the biological name "Elephas Pseudotherias," which would make the animals members of the Theria class of mammals. He added that the young mammontelephases belong to the order Proboscidea, having a long proboscis, or snout. It is not known whether the Russian scientists have classified the animals.
Unfortunately for those who had hoped to breed the two mammals, both are male. They are probably sterile anyway, Creak points out. Mules are almost invariably sterile because they end up with an odd number of chromosomes - 31 (from the donkey parent) plus 32 (from the horse parent), making a total of 63. The 63 chromosomes in the mule's body cells divide randomly into 31 or 32 in the gametes, or germ cells. When two mules mate, the pairs of germ cells are so unevenly matched that the chromosomes simply cannot pair up.
Although they will not reach adult size for another 25 years, the new mammoth calves have already exhibited extraordinary toughness by surviving the bitter cold of Irkutsk. They are being kept in an outdoor enclosure, and their reaction to the local weather conditions is being carefully monitored.
Mindful of the elephants used by Hannibal and Alexander the Great in cold climes, Yasmilov plans to train the mammontelephases to earn their keep when they reach adulthood. They could help pull immobilized convoy trucks out of the snowdrifts on the Trans-Siberian highway. This is now a troublesome task, as the machinery employed to do the job may freeze in the bitter cold.
Wonderful! Now there are two Ted Kennedys.
Now there's a problem right off the bat. The article's dated this year.
Another Endangered Species.
ping
Oh, come on, now...where are the Helen Thomas pix?!
There were other articles published last year which mentioned the attempt to produce a wolly mammoth from these cells.
****Interesting******
What no pick?
Pretty much says it all.
If you visit their lab and they offer you some microwaved popcorn, you might want to pass...
I'm going to need a bigger rifle!
But how do you cook it?
Hey, check out the name of the Dr. "Submitting" the artice.
E.M. Becile? Imbecile? OK, I get it. Nice joke. Ha Ha
My link does not go to the article.
I would like to see pictures.
Mister President, we may be looking at a Mammoth Gap!
Uh........I am skeptical to say the least. This would have been headline stuff. Reminds me of the first human clone that hit the news.
Everyone always needs a bigger rifle!
Better yet! This is the end of ALL ENDANGERED SPECIES! All we have to do is collect and freeze viable eggs from each species and keep them frozen. Then whenever we accidentally wipe one out we can just go to the freezer and make some more.
Problem solved.
pictures, hell: I want a big ol' fillet, durnit!
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