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.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Surely there are better things to spend money on, no?
Not just big, hairy elephants, but inbred crazy big hairy elephants.
Man...betcha that's one hell of a party school!
Will the saber tooth cats eat lawyers? Or would they get food poisoning from ingesting rotten legalese?
LOl
I guess this puts the environmentalist wacko assertion that "Extinction is Forever!" to the lie, doesn't it?
So that's why they sound like Raymond!
Kinda like the royal family.
Sounds like the Appalachian Republican Party.
I sincerly believe that in my lifetime I will see a T-Rex.
Once Crichton popularized the notion that this could be done, it will only be a matter of time before someone does it.
Scientists will start easy with recently extinct animals and then work their way back.
Flinstone, paging Fred Flintstone
Immanuel Velikovshy thought otherwise. He speculated that the Earth was moved in its orbit by interaction with other comets or planets. The mammoths became extinct when Siberia was suddenly thrust into the artic circle after the axis of rotation was shifted to the present day 23 1/2 degrees. A much better explanation considering what's been found in frozen mammoth stomachs. Whatever killed mammoths must have happened suddenly. Otherwise, the mammoths would have migrated. Also, the frozen mammoths likely died from drowning and freezing because they are preserved so well.
Whoo hoo! What a day....first Pompei now the wooly mammoth....
~~sigh~~
Seriously, too of my favorite topics (and yes, I think makin' a new one would be great).
Sure, but where's the fun in that? Nobody wins prizes worrying about future consequences.
Only with regard to hair and ears....
One question: would they taste good?
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