Bring back the Wooly mammoth?

[ThePresence]

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Japanese scientists said Tuesday they had created a mouse from a dead cell frozen for 16 years, taking a step in the long impossible dream of bringing back extinct animals such as mammoths.

Scientists at the government-backed research institute Riken used the dead cell of a mouse that had been preserved at minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a temperature similar to frozen ground.

The scientists hope that the first-of-a-kind research will pave the way to restore extinct animals such as the mammoth.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

The scientists extracted a cell nucleus from an organ of the dead mouse and planted it into an egg of another mouse which was alive, leading to the birth of the cloned mouse, the researchers said.

"The newly developed technology of nucleus transfer greatly improved the possibility of reviving extinct animals," the research team led by Teruhiko Wakayama said in a statement.

The cloned mouse was able to reproduce with a female mouse, it added.

But the researchers said tough challenges remain ahead on how to restore extinct animals, which would require breeding with animals that are still alive.

To revive a mammoth, researchers would need to find a way to implant a cell nucleus of a mammoth into the egg of an elephant and then implant the embryo into an elephant's uterus, it said.

The elephant is the closest modern relative of the mammoth, a huge woolly mammal believed to have died out with the Ice Age.

Is this a good idea, if it were even possible? We know nothing about the behavior of such an animal. How do we know if we could control or contain it? Michael Crichton wrote a novel based on this concept, you may have heard of it... "Jurassic Park". It didn't turn out so well.

 

[Baked]

Too easy. They should bring back T-Rex and raptors instead.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Yes, it's a good idea.
Otherwise, How the hell else are we supposed to be abel to get Mammoth Steaks at restaurants?

 

[nakedfrog]

Snuffleupagus!!!

 

[mugs]

I think a little country called Australia would have something to say about screwing up the balance of nature.

 

[Atheus]

I suppose you could justify it by claiming humans killed off the last of them after the ice age.

They could live in Cananda or Scotland or something. Nobody would notice.

 

[xanis]

Bad idea. The dinosaurs went extinct for a reason. Don't fuck with nature and bring them back.

 

[Kirby]

Mammoth sounds delicioius.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: Atheus
I suppose you could justify it by claiming humans killed off the last of them after the ice age.

They could live in Cananda or Scotland or something. Nobody would notice.

laugh my ass off

 

[BurnItDwn]

Originally posted by: Xanis
Bad idea. The dinosaurs went extinct for a reason. Don't fuck with nature and bring them back.

Dinosaurs are extinct because an asteroid collided with the earth and it killed them off. There is no "reason" to the universe ... there is just cause and effect. There isn't an insect planet that hurls asteroids like in Starship Troopers.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn

Originally posted by: Xanis
Bad idea. The dinosaurs went extinct for a reason. Don't fuck with nature and bring them back.

Dinosaurs are extinct because an asteroid collided with the earth and it killed them off. There is no "reason" to the universe ... there is just cause and effect. There isn't an insect planet that hurls asteroids like in Starship Troopers.

Not any more, at least :shiftyeyes;

 

[Injury]

Dude, I bet I could eat a whole rack of mammoth ribs in one sitting.

 

[troytime]

they should take the wooly mammoth cell nucleus and implant it in a tree, so we can just grow wooly mammoths and harvest them

 

[paulxcook]

Couldn't this tech be used to help endangered animals that usually don't breed well in captivity?

 

[nismotigerwvu]

This technically isn't a clone, this is still a chimera.
It retains the mitochondrial DNA of the donor cell, which we don't expect to play a significant role.
On the other hand we also at one point thought DNA was far too simple to carry genetic information and that proteins must be the vector of inheritance.
Still very cool nonetheless but not a 1:1 copy (definition of a clone, and impossible with a dead animal).
A true clone as of right now can only be made from a female by nucleating one of her own eggs.

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: paulxcook
Couldn't this tech be used to help endangered animals that usually don't breed well in captivity?

Darwin says, tough shit!

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn

Originally posted by: Xanis
Bad idea. The dinosaurs went extinct for a reason. Don't fuck with nature and bring them back.

Dinosaurs are extinct because an asteroid collided with the earth and it killed them off. There is no "reason" to the universe ... there is just cause and effect. There isn't an insect planet that hurls asteroids like in Starship Troopers.

This, I'm all for it! We've already fucked up the ecosystem enough anyways, plus mammoth might be tasty.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

scientists could modify the genetics, so that we can have mini mammoths

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn

Originally posted by: Xanis
Bad idea. The dinosaurs went extinct for a reason. Don't fuck with nature and bring them back.

Dinosaurs are extinct because an asteroid collided with the earth and it killed them off. There is no "reason" to the universe ... there is just cause and effect. There isn't an insect planet that hurls asteroids like in Starship Troopers.

dammit.

 

[paulxcook]

Originally posted by: Baked

Originally posted by: paulxcook
Couldn't this tech be used to help endangered animals that usually don't breed well in captivity?

Darwin says, tough shit!

If that's true he must be ready to choke a bitch over the idea of bringing back extinct animals.

 

[halik]

DODO!!!

they'd make the best pets evar

 

[BurnItDwn]

Originally posted by: CPA

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn

Originally posted by: Xanis
Bad idea. The dinosaurs went extinct for a reason. Don't fuck with nature and bring them back.

Dinosaurs are extinct because an asteroid collided with the earth and it killed them off. There is no "reason" to the universe ... there is just cause and effect. There isn't an insect planet that hurls asteroids like in Starship Troopers.

dammit.

Well, I suppose I could be wrong, the odds are just very low.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Hell yeah. It's totally one of the things I'd like to see done, just for the sake of it.

 

[Praetor]

Originally posted by: Atheus
I suppose you could justify it by claiming humans killed off the last of them after the ice age.

They could live in Cananda or Scotland or something. Nobody would notice.

You sir, owe me a new monitor. Mine now has soda all over the front.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Originally posted by: Praetor

Originally posted by: Atheus
I suppose you could justify it by claiming humans killed off the last of them after the ice age.

They could live in Cananda or Scotland or something. Nobody would notice.

You sir, owe me a new monitor. Mine now has soda all over the front.

Well, population densities of Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and Yukon are so low, that if we stuck a hundred or so Mammoths up there .... chances are, they would make contact with humans so infrequently, that nobody really would notice ...