Scientist Plans to Clone Woolly Mammoth | Hacker News Reader

Scientist Plans to Clone Woolly Mammoth

pcmag.com

45 pointscyen24 comments

I've been waiting for this since I was 7 years old and read a story in National Geographic about scientists finding a well-preserved Mammoth in the arctic tundra that still had plant matter in its stomach.

Years ago I read an article titled "Our genes are not us" (something like that) that touched on the problem of cloning a wooly mammoth.

As I understand it, the problem is that the same genes can produce a different result. An example of this is the caterpillar and the butterfly - same genes but different expression. External factors can change how the genes are expressed. External factors include when and how long the fetus is exposed to certain chemicals in utero.

This is off topic but it reminded me that the book Mammoth by John Varley (http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-John-Varley/dp/0441012817/ref=...) was a really fun read, though it has nothing to do with cloning.

Neat - but why does the article read as though it had been translated from another language? "Propositioning"?

Yeah, also "died out more than 5,000 years prior." Not to mention describing the dimensions of a "working" wooly mammoth.

It's about time they did some work. Those lazy bastards have been sitting around doing nothing for over 5,000 years!

Next up : recreate the Thylacine.

That's the one I want to see brought back from extinction. Though I'm not sure that any suitable DNA still exists.

Given their relation to the Kangaroo you could possibly selectively breed towards the Thylacine, although it would probably make them monstrously unhealthy to the point that blowing on one would likely kill it.

I'm unsure of Marsupials cross breeding ability, so I don't know how much biodiversity could be introduced if a selective breeding project was undertaken.

I don't know about that. I'm certainly no expert, but the Thylacine was a carnivore. As crazy as it sounds, it would seem to be more likely to breed one from a Tasmanian Devil. As marsupials are 'born' the size of a peanut, the actual parent wouldn't matter.

There has been articles floating around from time to time about a recreation of the Thylacine, but I think the stumbling block is the inability to get enough genetic information, despite the last living example living in captivity in 1936. Legend has it that the corpse was thrown out with the trash, althogh I'm not sure I believe that. You'd think they would have at least embalmed or frozen the corpse, but I guess 1930's conservation thinking didn't exist or was vastly different.

You can also find a rich litany of resources on the web of reported thylacine sightings, though none have ever been photographed accurately or verified. It does seem somewhat likely that a small family or two still lives deep in the Tasmanian wilderness.

Reminded me of this: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126905.000-ten-extin...

thats behind a pay wall. what are the ten beasts?

Off topic, but, wow was I surprised to see something from PC Magazine! It's been years since that site had anything other than month old news and reviews of year old products to offer!

Somehow I hope this will not succeed. Although exciting we may be getting careless about animal extinction because we can 'resurrect' them later.

Perhaps we should stop inventing better mousetraps, lest we "get careless" about maintaining properly cleaned homes. And maybe we should stop making hybrid cars, lest we "get careless" about only driving when necessary.

Give me a break.

I'll give you a break. My point is: sometimes we are getting careless about our environment because we think technology will fix what we break. But as I said this news is exciting.

You're a disgrace to the nerd & geek community Mr. You bring nothing but dishonor to us.

Can you explain your comment? Or are you just trolling? Since when is thinking about consequences not nerdy enough?

Actually there's been a long desire to reintroduce large game to North America to stabilize the ecology, increasing biodiversity and hopefully resolving food source problems for existing ecology.

If you want to think about the consequences of acting, you must also think about the consequences of inaction. Would there be as many wolf, coyote, bear and cougar attacks to people and herds in North America if there were a greater diversity.

Yes, I can explain: We can already clone any almost extinct species. We're not sure whether we can clone an already extinct one.

And if you consider yourself a (nerd|geek), you can't turn away from the possibility of someday riding a Mammoth obtained from SCIENCE.

...every year for 20 years

Jurassic Park in 2015... yesss! This is exciting, I'll be one of the first to buy a ticket when these end up in zoos and theme parks.

My only question, if anyone can answer, what about their immune system compared to our own, will they be more susceptible to diseases/infections/sickness etc?

Jurassic Park in 2015... yesss! This is exciting, I'll be one of the first to buy a ticket when these end up in zoos and theme parks.

Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming.

And then you end up with a T-Rex in San Diego. As Oscar Wilde said "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life".

wolly mammoth steak, i can already smell you... yummm...

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