Posted on 04/18/2005 8:08:56 AM PDT by Drew68
Scientists with the Mammoth Creation Project hope to find a frozen woolly mammoth specimen with sperm DNA. The sperm DNA would then be injected into a female elephant; by repeating the procedure with offspring, a creature 88 percent mammoth could be produced within fifty years.
"This is possible with modern technology we already have," said Akira Iritani, who is chairman of the genetic engineering department at Kinki University in Japan and a member of the Mammoth Creation Project. However, the DNA in mammoth remains found to date has been unusable, damaged by time and climate changes. "From a geologist's point of view, the preservation of viable sperm is very unlikely, and this is so far confirmed by the poor condition of cells in the mammoth carcasses," said Andrei Sher, Russian paleontologist and mammoth expert.
Woolly mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago as warming weather reduced their food sources. Although only about a hundred specimens have been found, as many as ten million mammoths are believed buried in permanently frozen Russian soil.
Irtani has already picked out a preserve for living mammoths in northern Siberia; this "Pleistocene Park" would feature extinct species of deer, woolly rhinoceroses and maybe even saber-toothed cats, along with the mammoths.
In his novel Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton popularized the idea of using dinosaur DNA taken from mosquito-like insects trapped in amber to create a Jurassic Park of recreated dinosaurs. Unhappily for the Pleistocene Park planners, both books and all three movies ended badly for most of the participants, including the investors. Also, astute scientists are already pointing out that these experiments would merely create mammoth-like creatures, not mammoths themselves. This wasn't pointed out until the third movie in the Jurassic Park series.
Read more at Woolly Mammoth Resurrection.
And when they recreate a carnivorous dinosaur that's larger than today's largest land carnivore? How will these animals be treated when they become ill or injured, particularly the larger, more aggressive ones?
Scientific progress has never been constrained by fear of risk. Throughout history great men have taken monumental risks in the name of science. There's nothing illogical about it. To be able to successfully clone extinct species of complex, multicellular organisms would be a scientific breakthrough of the highest order.
Well, of course it would be a scientific breakthrough but to what end? To bring back a species to conditions unnatural to it? What natural science will we learn from creatures who have no natural parents or background to learn from?
As far as wasteful? See my post# 124..
I saw it. There are plenty of other scientific endeavors aside from AIDS that require funding. Non-embryonic stem cell research comes to mind. On the zoological side, what about the creatures that are presently in the lowest depths of the ocean? Why are we more interested in extinct species, rather than in discovering present-day species? Perhaps even species only thought to be extinct?
I'm not against scientific progress. I just think we need to carefully consider that just because we can do something doesn't always mean that we should. Knowledge is only as good as the wisdom that applies it.
Thanks for the ping!
The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes:
Flood, Fire, and Famine in
the History of Civilization
by Richard Firestone,
Allen West,
Simon Warwick-Smith
Scientists with the Mammoth Creation Project hope to find a frozen woolly mammoth specimen with sperm DNA. The sperm DNA would then be injected into a female elephant; by repeating the procedure with offspring, a creature 88 percent mammoth could be produced within fifty years.
Why in the hell would be even attempted?? It would work better is they injected the sperm DNA into Hillary Clinton. She has the perfect sized thunder thighs to be about to carry the fetus mammoth.
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