[eXpat]

Cloning might create live woolly mammoth
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'K')YOTO, Japan, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- The extinct woolly mammoth could be brought back to life in as little as four years thanks to a breakthrough in cloning technology, a Japanese researcher says.

Akira Iritani, a professor at Kyoto University, says he wants to resurrect the species that died out 5,000 years ago by recovering nuclei from cells in the skin and muscle tissue of mammoths found in Siberian permafrost and inserting the nuclei into the egg cells of an African elephant, which will act as the surrogate mother for the mammoth, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported Thursday.

Previous efforts in the 1990s to recover nuclei from Siberian mammoths failed because they had been too badly damaged by the extreme cold.

However, a technique pioneered at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, was successful in cloning a mouse from the cells of another mouse that had been frozen for 16 years.

"Now the technical problems have been overcome, all we need is a good sample of soft tissue from a frozen mammoth," Iritani says.

Iritani said he estimates that another two years will be needed before nuclei can be obtained and the elephant impregnated, followed by the approximately 600-day gestation period.

"The success rate in the cloning of cattle was poor until recently but now stands at about 30 percent," Iritani said. "I think we have a reasonable chance of success and a healthy mammoth could be born in four or five years."

[Sixstrings]

All jokes aside, it would be really cool to get to see some of these extinct species. I think mammoths are the only species we'll be able to clone since there is frozen soft tissue available.

As for things like raptors, or the really interesting extinct North American mammals and giant sloths, we just don't have any frozen frozen remains of those.

[eastbay]

I bet a saber tooth tiger could be arranged.

Better yet, an ursus maritimus tyrannus! Imagine, a bear the size of a Ford Expedition.

[vision-master]

as we were cloned from those above us.

[Pretorian]

I wonder how different elefant's mitochondrial DNA, and if it matters for a proper mammoth development. Last mammoths were killed off around 2500 BC or so-- special thanks to eco-friendly nature-loving Native Americans

[eXpat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', 'I') bet a saber tooth tiger could be arranged.

Better yet, an ursus maritimus tyrannus! Imagine, a bear the size of a Ford Expedition.

[eastbay]

eXpat, I can see it happening.

If someone crosses a blue heron with a wild turkey and then selectively breeds the offspring to about 100x bigger. I bet it could be done in 25 years. I say go for it.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'I') wonder how different elefant's mitochondrial DNA, and if it matters for a proper mammoth development. Last mammoths were killed off around 2500 BC or so-- special thanks to eco-friendly nature-loving Native Americans

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'I') wonder how different elefant's mitochondrial DNA, and if it matters for a proper mammoth development. Last mammoths were killed off around 2500 BC or so-- special thanks to eco-friendly nature-loving Native Americans

[Serial_Worrier]

This is a horrible idea, this cloning of extinct creatures. They couldn't hack it, so let them be.

[PrestonSturges]

Seems like everyone has their Ice Age favorite creature.

I'd like the Giant Ground Sloth - a big old teddy bear the size of an elephant with claws 2 ft long

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'I') wonder how different elefant's mitochondrial DNA, and if it matters for a proper mammoth development. Last mammoths were killed off around 2500 BC or so-- special thanks to eco-friendly nature-loving Native Americans

[dinopello]

I don't know, it's not nearly as impressive as the mice with fully functional human brains.

[yeahbut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'I') have no doubt that climate change helped , neverthless mammoths on deserted islands existed 5-7000 years longer for some reason. Giant sloths lived in modern Cuba exactly until native American settlers arrived 900-1000 years ago.

[Ferretlover]

I think it would be quite interesting. Look what Godzilla did to NYC! LOL
Besides, we could feed them the homeless, similar to the natives tying up people for King Kong. Yum Yum!
And, it would certainly confuse any aliens that were observing the planet: "What the F*** are those people doing?!?!?!?"

Did I cover all the bases?

[Ludi]

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2010 ... 78775.html

"Woolly mammoths died out because climate change caused a massive decline in their grassland habitat, scientists reported last week.

Warming temperatures and the spread of forests after the last ice age 21,000 years ago, turned the mammoths’ grassland into less productive tundra-like habitat.

This reduced the food available to large mammals like the woolly mammoth, woolly rhino and cave lion and eventually led to their extinction, the team led by scientists at Durham University, and Lund University and Bristol University, says.

These changes coincided with an increase in the number and distribution of modern humans, Homo sapiens. A popular theory is that hunting and competition for land by humans caused the extinction of the mammoth. The team doesn’t rule out human influences but says that the changes in vegetation would have had the greatest effect.

‘We believe that the loss of food supplies from productive grasslands was the major contributing factor to the extinction of these mega-mammals,’ says Professor Brian Huntley, from the School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Durham University.

‘The change from productive grasslands across large areas of northern Eurasia, Alaska and Yukon to less productive tundra-like habitats had a huge effect on many species, particularly on the large herbivores like the woolly rhinoceros and woolly mammoth. Mammoths and other mega-mammals found it increasingly difficult to find food.’"

But we refuse to accept this information because it calls into question the idea of "Man the Destroyer." Man, unlike any other animal, must be inherently evil and destructive.

[Rod_Cloutier]

The are wasting science grants to pursue 'White mammoth' projects with no social benefits.

Last week I waited 4 hours at a walk-in medical clinic to see a doctor, only to be told I had a viral cold and they couldn't give me anything for it.

A better use for science grants would be to develop anti-viral medicines for the cure of common colds and other infections. Why in this time of economic depression are we devoting scarce resources to clone extinct mammoths, while real problems go unsolved?

[anador]

If this process succeeds whose to say we can't return some more recent extinctions to life...

You know, the ones that definitely are our fault?

It would be great to have tasmanian tigers, dodos, passenger pigeons, heath hens, carolina parakeets, albatross and some moas running around again

[Ludi]

I'm pretty sure the albatross is not extinct...yet.

Wouldn't it make more sense to spend our efforts on preserving the habitats of those animals which are still extant?

[anador]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I')'m pretty sure the albatross is not extinct...yet.

Wouldn't it make more sense to spend our efforts on preserving the habitats of those animals which are still extant?