Cloning the Woolly Mammoth
Mon, Nov 24, 2008
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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..
February 28th, 2009 at 10:39 am
“”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!”"
There is a reason we still send probes to Mars, men back to the moon, and other outragously expensive projects. Its because while you are working to do these things, you are inventing/discovering new technologies to do it. Thats how science has been advanced for hundreds of years. When you stop and say “ok, thats enough, you stagnate.
And just maybe, seeing a Mammoth walking around in the snow, would make people go “oooooo!” and suddenly genetics and other fields like it get a huge boost to their research budgets and watch, soon after they do come up with your cures you’re talking about.
March 2nd, 2009 at 3:56 am
you copied this whole article. i just read this exact article in the Huffington Post and you didn’t even leave a reference!
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:44 pm
@jojo, we’re syndicated on HuffPo. As you will notice, there are references to Environmental Graffiti on their article with links going back to us. See here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/25/cloning-the-woolly-mammot_n_146507.html
We hate plagiarism.
Chris
March 4th, 2009 at 4:19 am
dear environmental graffiti,
i apologize for the misunderstanding. i just jumped to conclusions with the facts that i had
March 6th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
this is not only relly weird, but also awsome. this is a huge step in science, technology, and human accomplishment
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:51 pm
wowo y are we going to colne a mammoth when the earth is getting over populated and we dont know wat i might do to us
April 5th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
They need to stop complaining and start cloning. It was easy in jurrasic park, and all they had were mosquitoes, these guys practically have a whole frozen baby woolly mammoth. I want my mammoth! In the words of Homer Simpson mmmm.. woolly mammoth ..
May 8th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
umm why would we WANT a mammoth in out flats? they would prolly kinda kill u or ruin ur home .. good luck with this
May 15th, 2009 at 3:35 am
Now these are the kind of stories I like to read! It’s astounding to think how far modern day genetics-studies have come! I hope this team is able to decode the COMPLETE DNA strand… and in my lifetime because I would love to see these ice age beasts with my own eyes.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:07 am
Our science field has fallen in certain areas, but not genetics. We have the technology, finally, to take away that endangered species list. People won’t complain about the lack of cheetas or the price of lobster because we can simply clone more of them to fill our needs. And would one wooly mammoth hurt the WHOLE planet? I think not. If it does, we can simply shoot it and the problem would be fixed. Alaska could use a mammoth or two in its vast wilderness anyway. I don’t believe it is considered “Playing God” either. I believe and deeply love God but, if I remember correctly, no where in the Bible did it say “Thou shalt not clone!” I think if God has given us the ability to move foreward, then so be it.
One Who Wants to see a Neanderthal in the Future
May 28th, 2009 at 2:36 am
They’ve probably already done this in some top secret goverment lab somewhere in the world ,they just wouldn’t tell us about it.
May 30th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Excellent news indeed! If we can ressurect mammoths then it will just be a matter of time to get ride of all the crap diseases that infect us like diabetes, acncer, etc. Imagine the possibilities. We could even brink my grandma back to life. I could then ask her where she’s hidden that engagement ring of hers I always liked when I was a child…
May 31st, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Good information for anyone
who wants to do a project on
Woolly Mammoths.
June 5th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
mammoth eggs using the severely damaged DNA from female mammoth mummies has failed in several attempts.
Good you people are not god ! Stop”
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:09 pm
There’s an excellent possibility that mammoths went extinct in the first place because we (meaning humans) killed and ate them all. If we drove the species to extinction, don’t we have a moral obligation to try to bring them back? Is that playing God, or just trying to set things back the way God intended? Well, actually it’s neither. It’s just playing science.
Which leads to the next related observation. If they went extinct because they were hunted for food, what if mammoth is the tastiest meat ever known to man? There’s all kinds of evidence that early Native American people hunted and ate mammoths, in spite of the fact that they were probably dangerous to get close to, hard to kill, impossible to move after you killed one, and they had no way of preserving the meat. Why go to all that trouble unless they were absolutely delish? What if we clone a mammoth and discover that it just melts in your mouth? What if this becomes a major new food source which can be raised in large numbers on otherwise useless range land in northern Canada? I say clone away and cook me up that mammoth steak medium-rare.
September 8th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
I can’t beleve the work these scientists are able to do. Who knows what we’ll
discover next.
September 30th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I THINK THIS IS A VERY DUMB IDEA TRYING TO BRING BACK TO\HE WOLLY MAMMOTH. because think about u r also going to bring back all kinds of diseases tht has gone away in the past u cant just look at how great this is going to be think about the consequences…
October 1st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Every time I read an article about this I am stunned by the amount of stupid comments left by people.
1: Playing God
This is the dumbest thing i have ever heard. Especially if when it comes from a religious person. Humans cannot play god. It’s impossible. If you believe in God then you HAVE to believe that god creates life. We don’t create life. Cloning is NOT creating life! We can only plant the seed, He makes it grow! If a baby mammoth is born a few years from now then it was god that created the life. PERIOD!
2: Bringing back diseases? What the hell is wrong with you people! Do you understand what a Virus is? How could we…I’m not even going to try to explain this one, If you believe that then you are past the point of learning. Go read a text book or something. Good lord this planet is full of dumb people.
3: Who cares if the mammoth is nice or aggressive? We have these things called guns! the mammoth was not some super powered being. It was an animal, a large animal, but just an animal all the same.Oh and they were not that much bigger than modern elephants. I have full faith that I could take one out with a semi-auto 12 gauge loaded with magnum slugs. Early humans took them out with spears for the love of god!!
The other thing I want to mention is that nobody is talking about cloning a bunch of these things and letting them loose! Mammoths would never again see the wilds. They would be in zoos for people to see and learn about. We would never reach the point of having a breeding population.