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The Mammoth Cometh
The New York Times ^ | 27 Feb 2014 | NATHANIEL RICH

Posted on 02/27/2014 11:44:06 AM PST by Theoria

Bringing extinct animals back to life is really happening — and it’s going to be very, very cool. Unless it ends up being very, very bad.

The first time Ben Novak saw a passenger pigeon, he fell to his knees and remained in that position, speechless, for 20 minutes. He was 16. At 13, Novak vowed to devote his life to resurrecting extinct animals. At 14, he saw a photograph of a passenger pigeon in an Audubon Society book and “fell in love.” But he didn’t know that the Science Museum of Minnesota, which he was then visiting with a summer program for North Dakotan high-school students, had them in their collection. He was shocked when he came across a cabinet containing two stuffed pigeons, a male and a female, mounted in lifelike poses. He was overcome by awe, sadness and the birds’ physical beauty: their bright auburn breasts, slate-gray backs and the dusting of iridescence around their napes that, depending on the light and angle, appeared purple, fuchsia or green. Before his chaperones dragged him out of the room, Novak snapped a photograph with his disposable camera. The flash was too strong, however, and when the film was processed several weeks later, he was haunted to discover that the photograph hadn’t developed. It was blank, just a flash of white light.

In the decade since, Novak has visited 339 passenger pigeons — at the Burke Museum in Seattle, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Harvard’s Ornithology Department, which has 145 specimens, including eight pigeon corpses preserved in jars of ethanol, 31 eggs and a partly albino pigeon.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: dna; extinction; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; jurassicpark; lmammoth; mammoth; mammoths; opinion; pleistocenepark
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To: Billthedrill
Yeah, I thought of that. I'd let mine inside on the cold days. Train it to use a litter box. A big litter box.

John Deere probably makes scoop that you can use to clean that litter box.

21 posted on 02/27/2014 12:07:36 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: DManA

That makes him a necropigiac...

or something....


22 posted on 02/27/2014 12:11:04 PM PST by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: DannyTN; Billthedrill

So... when you say

“Wow.... I need to take a Mammoth Dump” you wouldn’t be kidding, would you... (the scene from Jurassic Park, with the Triceratops Poop Pile comes to mind)....

Damn...


23 posted on 02/27/2014 12:13:17 PM PST by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: Theoria

Hello???? We don’t need Carrier Pigeons anymore, we have the Internet.

We have an overabundance of Pigeons (and Pigeon Poop!) So bringing back Carrier Pigeons by the BILLIONS is a bad idea.


24 posted on 02/27/2014 12:15:12 PM PST by faucetman ( Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts)
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To: Theoria

This guy sounds like Fink-Nottle and his obsession with newts. (From the PG Wodehouse stories)


25 posted on 02/27/2014 12:16:49 PM PST by Disambiguator
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To: Theoria

“and a disk of pure nickel inscribed with 1,500 languages that has been mounted on the Rosetta space probe.” ...

Yea, that’s not going confuse the potential alien discoverers at all.


26 posted on 02/27/2014 12:17:16 PM PST by Usagi_yo (Standardization is an Evolutionary dead end.)
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To: Buckeye McFrog
My favorite scene from Jurassic Park is when that lawyer gets eaten by a T-Rex while taking a dump.
27 posted on 02/27/2014 12:19:44 PM PST by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: wbill

Bring back the saber-toothed tiger and t-rex.


28 posted on 02/27/2014 12:21:11 PM PST by bgill
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To: Theoria

That would be interesting. A real life mammoth, and Ted Nugent can kill it just to make liberals heads explode.


29 posted on 02/27/2014 12:24:32 PM PST by GrandJediMasterYoda (Hitlery: Incarnation of evil.)
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To: NFHale; Billthedrill
My girlfriend has a poodle. And every once in awhile, after going out side to do it's business, it'll come in and there'll be some hanging from the hairs on her backside. She'll have to get some wipes and clean the poodle up.

BilltheDrill better keep his mammoth well trimmed, or he'll have a mammoth clean up job.

Just things you might not have thought about.

30 posted on 02/27/2014 12:25:49 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN; Billthedrill

Well, if the “unthinkable” happens - the mammoth can always store a crate of wipes in the trunk...

(baddaBING!)

And whenever you think YOU’RE having a “bad day at work”, remember THIS poor bastard...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWgovxo3eA

Talk about “getting into your work”... Whew!


31 posted on 02/27/2014 12:32:09 PM PST by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: DannyTN
Just things you might not have thought about.

Well, yeah, and a responsible mammoth owner needs to get that sort of thing straight from the beginning. I don't want my tombstone to read "Here lies BilltheDrill, squished while trying to trim a mammoth's butt with a weed-eater." For one thing, that much script would be expensive.

32 posted on 02/27/2014 12:36:07 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: NFHale

I can see youtube at work. But your lead in, makes me think of Ed Norton on the honeymooners who worked in the sewers.


33 posted on 02/27/2014 12:36:08 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: NFHale
can't see at work..
34 posted on 02/27/2014 12:39:43 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN

Picture elephant...

Picture college kid cleaning elephant cage BEHIND elephant...

Picture elephant backing up, and SITTING on college kid...

Picture college kid’s HEAD stuck up elephant’s rear end, and both elephant AND college kid are screaming...

Picture college kid’s co-worker tugging on kid to REMOVE said cranium from elephant’s rear end... and let the retching and puking begin.

Yeah...


35 posted on 02/27/2014 12:40:39 PM PST by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: Theoria

Dr. Ian Malcolm: Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and screaming. (The Lost World - Jurassic Park)


36 posted on 02/27/2014 12:42:56 PM PST by Leroy S. Mort ("Don't say sh*t unless you know for sure it helps." - Raylan Givens)
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To: Billthedrill; DannyTN

And whatever you do, DON’T feed the Mammoth “Beefareeno”...

Mammoth methane is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, because you know, you just KNOW, some damn fool is going to light a match the MOMENT that tail goes up...


37 posted on 02/27/2014 12:43:06 PM PST by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: Theoria
Transhumanism is a dream to many.

It is also a nightmare that brought on the Flood.

38 posted on 02/27/2014 12:46:45 PM PST by mountainlion
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To: Theoria

“In less than three hours, Church responded with a detailed plan to return “a flock of millions to billions” of passenger pigeons to the planet.”

Just what are the unintended consequences of that? What ecological niche will it inhabit or takeover? What will be kicked out of that niche?


39 posted on 02/27/2014 1:08:11 PM PST by KrisKrinkle (Blessed be those who know the depth and breadth of their ignorance. Cursed be those who don't.)
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To: NFHale
Most boys that age are chasing girls...
This one’s chasing pigeons.


Like that character Wally Cox used to play on The Beverly Hillbillies?


40 posted on 02/27/2014 1:13:37 PM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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