Will woolly mammoths walk the earth again?

[Chewbacca]

This would make a Flintstones movie sequel interesting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/stor...998977,00.html

After a six-year search Japanese scientists are preparing to clone prehistoric woolly mammoths from frozen DNA samples found in Siberia. Inspired by Dolly the sheep - cloned from the cell of an adult ewe in Scotland in 1996 - and the film Jurassic Park, researchers from Kagoshima and Kinki universities and the Gifu Science and Technology Centre began the search in 1997 for sperm or tissue from mammoths preserved in the tundra. The plan was to find a frozen male, recover samples of its sperm, inseminate a modern elephant and create a mammoth-elephant hybrid. No sperm was ever found. Several mammoths, preserved in the permafrost, have been identified in Siberia but the DNA was degraded. In the past five years, researchers all around the world have kept alive the dream that they might be able to restore extinct species by cloning. The Australian Museum in Sydney announced a plan to restore the Tasmanian tiger, which vanished more than 60 years ago, by taking DNA from pickled puppies in a Victorian biological collection. China announced a project to clone the giant panda, because captive breeding has proved so difficult. US researchers managed to clone the gaur, a threatened species of Indian bison, three years ago but the calf died shortly after it was born to a cow. The Japanese scientists collected samples of bone marrow, muscle and skin from mammoth remains found in Siberia last August. Yesterday, after a year fighting Russian bureaucracy, the samples arrived. The researchers face a series of new hurdles. First, they have to confirm the samples are from mammoths, then see if they can isolate a full set of chromosomes. Then they would have to fuse an egg from a living relative - an elephant - with DNA from an extinct creature. Then there would be the challenge of implanting the embryo into the womb of a host mother. If they overcame all these challenges, they would then be faced with the biggest of all: what to do with a lonely ice age mammal in a rapidly warming world.

[johnny]

They shouldn't be doing this. These animals had their chance, and didn't make it.

[Timber Loftis]

Actually, both wooly mammoths and sabre-tooth cats have appeared as many as 4 times in Earth's history. It is an interesting phenomenon brought on by climatic changes favoring their breeds during ice ages. And, the mammoth always appears first, with the large-toothed cats coming soon after. Then they both go extinct about the same time.

[Rokenn]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Actually, both wooly mammoths and sabre-tooth cats have appeared as many as 4 times in Earth's history. It is an interesting phenomenon brought on by climatic changes favoring their breeds during ice ages. And, the mammoth always appears first, with the large-toothed cats coming soon after. Then they both go extinct about the same time.

Cool, so we will have saber-tooth cats roaming the streets a few years later? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Legolas]

It's a nice idea, but almost impossible to carry out as nearly anyone involved can tell you. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted, it does mean that we won't be seeing the woolly ones again any time soon.
The biggest problem, like in JP, is that the DNA structure has the tendency to break down after a few thousand years of doing nothing. Even if the different molecules which make up DNA strands are still there, nearly all will have fallen from the chain and what you have is a giant jigsaw puzzle with no image on the box to go by, and tons of pieces which all look to be remarkably similar. What you can do is look at elephant DNA and use that to guess what the mammoth DNA should look like (just like they used frog DNA for the JP dinosaurs), but of the billions of remaining possibilities only a handful are actually going to work.
Once you have that sorted and you hold the DNA strands and chromosomes, then it would be easy to insert that into an empty elephant eggcell and implant that. With a little luck a new old woolly mammoth will be born. With much more luck it actually manages to survive.
But what does that give you? You now have a woolly mammoth, yes. But it's never seen a proper mammoth itself and won't know how to behave like one. Instead, it'll act like the elephants it gets to interact with every day. Congratulations, you've just made a tall, hairy elephant.

What would work is to start with a herd of elephants, and put them someplace where they can live normally but where you can also regulate temperatures. Then, within just a few centuries of accelerated evolution, you might have hairier elephants again who know how to behave in a colder environment. Hurrah.
But maybe you could add a few cloned woolly elephants to speed up the proces...

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Rokenn: Cool, so we will have saber-tooth cats roaming the streets a few years later? [img]smile.gif[/img]

Um.... No. The hand of man has royally f**ed up the Earth's natural course anyway, so no pattern from before can be expected to occur in today's manicured, manufactured, and managed world. Damn us, we are such a blight. A disease.

Ooops, I'm ranting again aren't I?

[Rokenn]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: quote: Originally posted by Rokenn: Cool, so we will have saber-tooth cats roaming the streets a few years later? [img]smile.gif[/img]

Um.... No. The hand of man has royally f**ed up the Earth's natural course anyway, so no pattern from before can be expected to occur in today's manicured, manufactured, and managed world. Damn us, we are such a blight. A disease.

Ooops, I'm ranting again aren't I? [/QUOTE]Maybe instead of bringing back the Mammoth we should bring back the Saber-Tooth. To thin the herd as it were [img]tongue.gif[/img]

http://members.cox.net/wolvesofthenorth/farside.html

[WillowIX]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Actually, both wooly mammoths and sabre-tooth cats have appeared as many as 4 times in Earth's history. It is an interesting phenomenon brought on by climatic changes favoring their breeds during ice ages. And, the mammoth always appears first, with the large-toothed cats coming soon after. Then they both go extinct about the same time.

Well then since another ice age is soon to come what the heck, let's give the mammoths a head start.

Anyway, I think the research is interesting but the target is completely off. Why not try and help some of the species we have destroyed. I know several endangered species that ould use a boost. And of course several humans that could need a boot.

[Stratos]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: quote: Originally posted by Rokenn: Cool, so we will have saber-tooth cats roaming the streets a few years later? [img]smile.gif[/img]

Um.... No. The hand of man has royally f**ed up the Earth's natural course anyway, so no pattern from before can be expected to occur in today's manicured, manufactured, and managed world. Damn us, we are such a blight. A disease.

Ooops, I'm ranting again aren't I? [/QUOTE]Yes, we should all kill ourself and let the rats take over the world. I'm sure they're morally superior to us.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Stratos: Yes, we should all kill ourself and let the rats take over the world. I'm sure they're morally superior to us.

Being mostly instinctual creatures that are incapable of "evil," you are quite right -- they ARE morally superior to us. [img]tongue.gif[/img]