Posted on 12/18/2005 9:21:33 PM PST by planetesimal
Scientists have pieced together part of the genetic recipe of the extinct woolly mammoth.
The 5,000 DNA letters spell out the genetic code of its mitochondria, the structures in the cell that generate energy.
The research, published in the online edition of Nature, gives an insight into the elephant family tree.
It shows that the mammoth was most closely related to the Asian rather than the African elephant.
The three groups split from a common ancestor about six million years ago, with Asian elephants and mammoths diverging about half a million years later.
"We have finally resolved the phylogeny of the mammoth which has been controversial for the last 10 years," lead author Michael Hofreiter of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, told the BBC News website.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
The complete mitochondrial DNA of an extinct animal has been sequenced before but only for the flightless bird, the moa, which died out about 500 years ago.
This is, and mammoths are and always will be, cool.
Let's clone them ala "The Lost World".
Only 5000 base-pairs to make a mitochondria? Wow.
I want a pet mammoth!!
People somewhere are starving so funds can go toward decoding the dna of an extinct elephant.
"People somewhere are starving so funds can go toward decoding the dna of an extinct elephant."
Same could be said on the dinner you had tonight. Why didn't you give the money you spent on your dinner to starving kids in Africa?
"People somewhere are starving so funds can go toward decoding the dna of an extinct elephant."
solve two problems with one cloning...
bring em back to life as meat animals :)>
Well lets see I actually ATE my dinner (all of it actually I was pretty hungry afterwords, still am really). I'm betting none of those scientist were eating mammoth. Even if they were it'd be an incredibly overpriced meal. This isn't useful science.
Also.
Most the folks interested in this kind of thing are avid evolution proponent. Darwin's law has ruled the mammoth isn't suited to the future. Move on already. Bare minimum this cash could instead be sent setting up space colonies at least that would be potentially useful.
People somewhere are starving so funds can go toward decoding the dna of an extinct elephant.
<<
People are starving because their governments steal from them. If they had economic freedom, low taxes and strong private rights they would not starve.
Your argument is a white elephant.
DK
Or do you propose that we should all work as slaves on farms to feed the poor?
Yes, I think we should clone them. Woolly mammoths are cool. I'd love to see one.
I read a story with genetically engineered pets in it. German Shepherd sized elephants....way cool! No one was starving because they wasted money on Purina Elephant Chow though.
DK
Wonderful. A scientific scrooge. The only people in this country that go hungry are too strung out on drugs or alcohol to stagger to the local soup kitchen.
Okay, give all the money for this study to me. I know I could put it to better use than determining DNA of a mammoth. Even if I used it all for skeet shooting it would be a more worthy cause.
No.
The mitochindria has a circular DNA molecule that is distinct from the chromosomal DNA (two pairs of 23 in humans). This refers to this mitochondrial DNA, sometimes referred to as satellite DNA. Most proteins of the mitochondria are coded for by chromosomal genes. The mitochondria is not "made" by these base pairs.
This link is to the sequence entry for the mamoth mitochondrial DNA at the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Like most mitochondrial DNA it codes for a handful of genes (13) and a subset of ribosomal RNA that are mitochondrial specific.
Someone ping me with some good mammoth barbeque recipes when they get a few herds of the beasts.
"Your argument is a white elephant. "
Ha Ha Ha!
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