Posted on 03/16/2014 10:39:35 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
Woolly mammoths are coming back, say cloning scientists
In what sounds like it could be the plot for the next Jurassic Park movie, a team of scientists in Siberia says there's a 'high chance' that they will be able to clone a woolly mammoth.
The breakthrough comes as a result of last year's discovery of an incredibly well-preserved mammoth carcass, frozen in the permafrost of Siberia's Malolyakhovskiy island. The scientists estimate that the animal is about 43,000 years old, and was 50-60 years old when it died in distress after getting stuck in the ice. In the ten months since the discovery, the international team has been carefully thawing out various parts of the animal to extract tissue and blood samples, and they say the results are remarkable.
Woolly mammoths became extinct over 4,000 years ago, but we have been able to learn a lot about them through discoveries like this one. Radik Khayrullin from the Russian Association of Medical Anthropologists says that this discovery is so well-preserved that they should be able to take things to a whole new level. Viktoria Egorova, chief of the Research and Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory of the Medical Clinic of North-Eastern Federal University, says that they have found haemolysed blood containing erythrocytes, along with migrating cells in the lymphoid tissue, all key to making the cloning process work.
Should they decide to go ahead with trying to create a clone, Khayrullin says that the resulting animal will not be identical to what used to walk the Earth. For starters, they will be using a female elephant as a surrogate mother. Then of course there are a host of ethical questions that need to be answered. Khayrullin says that they are not trying to play God, but that it's important to have the right motives. "We must have a reason to do this, as it is one thing to clone it for scientific purpose, and another to clone for the sake of curiosity." In other words, they should only do it to advance scientific understanding, not just because they think it would be a neat thing to do.
Let's just hope they don't run into some rich guy who wants to make a male and female pair, so he can put them on display in an island amusement park.
Heh. :-)
They’ve found lots of neat things about parenting in higher intelligence herd mammals: Like that zebra herds assembled from relocated calves have no idea how to respond to a lion, but zebras who have had contact between generations know how to respond even though none of the animals in question had ever seen a lion. Similar multigenerational teaching of the abstract has been shown with elephants as well.
Wooley bulley, wooley bulley, wooley bulley, watch it now.
Ah, man, I want a live-action version of the Herculoids so bad!
...and that’s BEFORE makeup!
Totally disgusts me. Why don’t they put their brain power and money into SAVING wild elephants, orangutans, and other species being wiped out by poachers…even wild horses here in America.
The Quest for Fire
That must be without the makeup.
Ribs?! All right, then!
Not seeing the problem KC. After all, at that point My army gets cloned too. And we have ways of dealing with big lizards...
“Lydia? My sword please....”
“State of Fear” anyone?
He did an episode in the 90s/90s “Outer Limits” series that was pretty friggin great.
THE OUTER LIMITS Episode "Black Box" Ron Perlman as Brandon Grace
Ron Perlman sure didn’t need a lot of makeup.
:-)
Ron Perlman from Ice Pirates, his 2nd movie in which he played a character called Zeno.
“”We must have a reason to do this, as it is one thing to clone it for scientific purpose, and another to clone for the sake of curiosity.” In other words, they should only do it to advance scientific understanding, not just because they think it would be a neat thing to do.””
What a croc of... These guys are itching to do it.
There's less need to save endangered species if we can print new ones at will. We should transmit the DNA codes and instructions how to build out to the universe in all directions. If some advanced life form picks it up there could be Earth elephants and wild horses everywhere billions of years from now. Even you could be on the reincarnation list.
Just think of the fortune we could make printing out new husbands/wives after a divorce. Or even before:) Just add up the "qualifications" and head for the magic printer.
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