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.
They don't appear to be big or hairy. It's hard to evaluate their relative craziness from this photo, so maybe you're right on that one.
We'd have to know the T-Rex's DNA before we could do that. Trial and error would probably not be a viable way to turn an ostrich into a T-Rex.
If we knew what a T-Rex's DNA was in the first place, we would not need to "de-evolve" other species into T-Rex, we could simply use the DNA to create a T-Rex from scratch.
Yep,
People throw money away in Las Vegas everyday (why the place exists is beyond me!)
Growing an old critter seems like a fun thing to do!
It is interesting.
I bet we can do it. Whether we should is another question.
Now that would be very interesting if they could...I'd like to see it.
Their Ears don't appear overly large. (photo at #41)
We can do it. Should we do it? Probably not. Will we do it? Yes. Why? Just to see if we can. This is human nature explained.
It is a common misconception that mammoths were much larger than modern elephants, an error that has led to "mammoth" being used as an adjective meaning "very big". Certainly, the largest known species, the Imperial Mammoth of California, reached heights of at least 4 meters (13 feet) at the shoulder. However, most species of mammoth were only about as large as a modern Indian elephant, and fossils of a species of dwarf mammoth have been found on Wrangel Island off the east coast of Siberia. They became extinct only at about 2000 BC.
The mammoths diverged from the Asian elephants after the latter group split from the African elephants, meaning that the mammoths were in fact more closely related to the modern Indian elephant than the African elephant is. Since there is a known case in which an Indian elephant and an African elephant have produced a live offspring, it has been theorised that if mammoths were still alive today, they would be able to interbreed with Indian elephants, and this has led to the idea that perhaps a mammoth-like beast could be recreated by taking genetic material from a frozen mammoth and combining it with that from a modern Indian elephant. However, not enough genetic material has been found in frozen mammoths for this to be attempted [1] (http://rbcm1.rbcm.gov.bc.ca/hhistory/mammoth/mammothstory.html).
Whether the mammoth died out for climatic reasons or because of overhunting by humans ("overkill") is debated.
Amazing theory. Where do you get the daisies growing alongside a frozen lake? Just curious...
They died off for a reason. Leave them be.
Just because man can do a thing, does not mean he should do a thing.
Similar stpories alredy done - like the discovery of the Jackoff-osaurus. Very bad to have those around. And what about the guy found frozen in ice for 2 years. He needed to be relocated to Des Moine.
Exactly my thought. Will the 88% of DNA restored include the DNA of the virus that may have killed them off? And if it did and if it does, how will modern day pachyderms be affected? How will man be affected?
Do you have a reference for this? I'm not being sarcastic, but genuinely interested.
In other news, they also plan to resurrect Hitler.
> That's a lot of walking on frozen lakes, breaking through ice, dieing, and getting frozen!
Siberia is a big place. Millenia are long times.
I know what you mean . . .
-"This is possible with modern technology we already have,"-
Lots of things are possible, but it doesn't mean they should or have to be done.
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