Cloning the Woolly Mammoth
Mon, Nov 24, 2008
Image: Mauricio Anton
You don’t know this, but your life is empty and missing something important. You need a woolly mammoth in the living room, and on a leash to take shopping. There will be a range of sizes to choose from, mammoths to order from miniatures for condos to 17 ft tall behemoths that will live on your ranch. In November 2008, a team of scientists at Pennsylvania State University reported they had sequenced a large fraction of the mammoth genome. The genome of any living species is the DNA genes which make up the chromosomes that reside in the nucleus of every cell and if we have that, then we might be able recreate the entire beast. We are on the road that leads to cloning a woolly mammoth.
Image: Rama
The closest living relative to the extinct woolly mammoth that died out in most localities at the end of the last ice age, is the African elephant. The DNA of these two species differ at approximately 400,000 sites in the genome. The scientific team at Pennsylvania State University extracted DNA from the hair of a woolly mammoth mummy that had been found in Siberia. A new DNA decoding machine made this exciting success possible because it can work with genetic material from hair and DNA that is broken up and can only be isolated as fragments. Decoding the entire mammoth genome is only question of money, cost estimate is about $USD 2 million. At this early startup stage, your mammoth will be expensive, but where can you find anything like it?
Image: Tracy O
Creating mammoth eggs using the severely damaged DNA from female mammoth mummies has failed in several attempts. There have been discussions about modifying the genome of an African elephant, a project that would cost $USD10 million and require changing each of the 400,000 genetic sites that differ between it and the woolly mammoth. A cell containing such a modified genome could be converted into an embryo by a process recently developed by a Japanese researcher, and then brought to term in the womb of a female African elephant. Outrageous as this may sound, there are new laboratory procedures that can modify 50,000 genes at a time. The result, if it works, will stretch the boundaries of possibility forever.
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2 Trackbacks For This Post
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Time Odyssey » There be Mammoths here Captain Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 12:26 am[...] we are now on the pathto creating our own little Jurassic park. Apparently custom ordered Woolly Mammoths are just around [...]
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WEBTHUMP! Wednesday 26 November 2008 | Hecklerspray Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 5:24 pm[...] 2 - Cloned woolly mammoths. This is what killed Crichton, you know - Environmentalgraffiti [...]
November 25th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Wow, that is pretty wild now.
Beaner
http://www.privacy.de.tc
November 25th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Heck I want a velociraptor. At least they know how to open doors!
November 25th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Unfortunately, for the folks at the University of Pennsylvania (www.upenn.edu) and for this article, it was actually a team of scientists at the Pennsylvania State University (www.psu.edu) that did the work and deserve the credit.
The original news-breaking article is at http://live.psu.edu/story/36123
November 25th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I want a T-Rex to patrol my property, because those damn kids never listen to me when I tell them to get off my lawn.
November 25th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Science can be so exciting. I think Ice Age 3 should sponsor this endeavor… imagine the cross promotion possibilities!
-John
http://www.woopid.com/
November 25th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
That is awesome! Recreating an extinct animal would probably be the biggest scientific achievement of all time!
November 25th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
If this technology is perfected, will this mean an end to the endangered species list?
November 25th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
They’re extinct for a reason.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
nice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=763vmCrRBDg
November 25th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
The scientists are actually from Penn State, not U Penn.
http://rw.mammoth.psu.edu/
November 26th, 2008 at 2:48 am
WTF is wrong with you?
Don’t you read the news? Elephants have nowhere to roam, they take tons of food literally to feed. What will we do with the Woolly Mammoth??? What about the global warming? They’ll be sweating like crazy! Are we gonna provide them air conditioning? That’ll add to the global warming! We’re gonna be screwed over the resurrection of the Woolly Mammoth! The end of the world is coming soon! Repent!
November 26th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Thanks Ron and Jeff for notes about Penn Uni. All changed.
Linda
November 26th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Dont you think this cloning crap has gone far enough ?
It would just be a matter of time until the mad scienceists would have frankenstien monster types either releashed on purpose or excapeing and reeking havoc on society.
Enough is enough!!!
November 30th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Just try to imagine the possibilities. Amazing.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I remember when I was born, I was the only kid with a mammouth
December 6th, 2008 at 4:24 am
The closest living relative of the Wooly Mammoth is the Indian, not the African elephant.
We need a herd of mammoths.
December 7th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I feel that if we as human beings have the god givin’ intelligence to bring back to life what once parished would be an absoulute miracle. To see with ones own eyes what our very ancestors saw would be like traveling in time. The Woolly Mammoth did not become extinct because of some wrath of god or some curse bestowed upon them from the universe. They simply faltered under the sands of time to be discovered and reborn when the planet was ready for them to walk again.
December 11th, 2008 at 2:34 am
X1X
Thank you troll for the appearance the forum would not be complete without you.
Are you dumb?? Hey we need some big air conditioners here not like the arctic is still cold, oh wait.
There are massive amounts of room for a small population of mammoths anywhere around the arctic circle Alaska is for far more than right wing Cristian soccer moms.
This is not to mention what this means for genetics and possible Cures for people who are born without certain genes.
If you were smart enough to understand even this idea maybe you wouldn’t make yourself look like an idiot.
To silver fox.
I don’t know where to start, go crawl back under your rock and stop posting on a site where you should actually know anything.
This has huge potential for humans as well as the hundreds of thousands of species we have wiped out.
This is good for everyone including the environment.
Good post
Sincerly
Trollkiller
December 19th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
May I simply say that I firmly believe we homo sapiens need to quit pretending to be some type of “God”.
If this entity we call “God”, wiped out the Wolly Mammoth’s throusands of years ago, it must have been for a valid reason.
We can assume that the Mammoth was a kind, gentle creature. From the studies and assumptions scientists made. Key word ‘assumption’, because unless we’ve actually lived with a Wolly Mammoth then we in fact DON’T know their potentials, reactions etc.!
1. But do we, in fact know if the Wolly Mammoth was as meek and mild, as we assume?
2. How do we know that the creature isn’t genetically holding some type of disease? Re-creating the animal could potentially have negative reprocussions! Infecting its keepers…with some harmful disease.
3. Why are we wasting money on recreating an extinct animal? Why not waste money on something more dire to humanity and our health? Like research on Cancer, Aids etc. you know finding a cure for the diseases, not trying to bring up an extinct animal from the dead!
Yeah, the sciene fictional idea sounds great. But do we, the human race truly need an additional animal? One that we have NO real CLUE about?!
I think our scientists are bored? Well that’s how it appears. The whole idea does in fact sound like a great one, Out of Jurasik Park. I mean I am an animal lover! Don’t get me wrong.
I just think it is rather narrow minded of us to focus on rising an animal from the dead rather then focusing on the important needs of the now.
December 21st, 2008 at 6:51 am
Playing God. That’s what brilliant minds are for. Dunno if we should call it that though. Raising the dead? That’s resurrection. If that will come to light, someone will be needing a miniature breed. Ha ha! ^_^.v..