Woolly mammoth DNA may lead to a resurrection of the ancient beastTechnical and ethical challenges abound after first hurdle of taking cells from millennia-old bodies is cleared
(http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/7/30/1375210718909/baby-mammoth-carcass-008.jpg)
Even a well-preserved carcass like this baby woolly mammoth is unlikely to provide viable cells for cloning, as used to create Dolly. Photograph: Aaron Tam/GettyQuoteThe pioneering scientist who created Dolly the sheep has outlined how cells plucked from frozen woolly mammoth carcasses might one day help resurrect the ancient beasts.
The notional procedure – bringing with it echoes of the Jurassic Park films – was spelled out by Sir Ian Wilmut, the Edinburgh-based stem-cell scientist, whose team unveiled Dolly as the world's first cloned mammal in 1996.
Though it is unlikely that a mammoth could be cloned in the same way as Dolly, more modern techniques that convert tissue cells into stem cells could potentially achieve the feat, Wilmut says in an article today for the academic journalism website, The Conversation.
"I've always been very sceptical about the whole idea, but it dawned on me that if you could clear the first hurdle of getting viable cells from mammoths, you might be able to do something useful and interesting," Wilmut told the Guardian.
"I think it should be done as long as we can provide great care for the animal. If there are reasonable prospects of them being healthy, we should do it. We can learn a lot about them," he added.
Woolly mammoths roamed the Earth tens of thousands of years ago in a period called the late Pleistocene. Their numbers began to fall in North America and on mainland Eurasia about 10,000 years ago. Some lived on for a further 6,000 years. Their demise was likely the result of hunting and environmental change.
The prospect of raising woolly mammoths from the dead has gathered pace in recent years as the number of frozen bodies recovered from the Siberian permafrost has soared. The rise comes because the ice is melting, but also because of awareness in the region that there is money in the ancient remains.
Earlier this month, the most complete woolly mammoth carcass ever recovered from Russia was unveiled at an exhibition in Yokohama, Japan. The baby female, nicknamed Yuka, lived about 39,000 years ago, and is remarkable for the preservation of her fur and soft tissues, such as muscle.
Samples from Yuka have been sent to the laboratory of Hwang Woo-suk, the disgraced South Korean stem cell scientist, who, with Russian researchers, hopes to clone the mammoth.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jul/31/woolly-mammoth-dna-cloning
Ethical? Probably not. But who here would not click on it right away if I said I had a film of a resurrected dinosaur, sabre toothed tiger or mammoth?
It's going to happen in public sooner or later so you may as well get accustomed to the idea. It is exciting too.
Damn good idea.
Maybe we can use em to replace nuclear power by setting up fields full of really big hamster wheels with genetically engineered woolly mammoths chasing genetically engineered carrots?
A horsepower is roughly one kilowatt, so a mammoth hungry for the six foot (genetically engineered, of course) carrot should provide a most viable source of energy. IF we could get a fast breeding program organised, we cold clear areas in the world to make massive mammoth parks, and the manufacture and maintaining of the huge mammoth wheels will provide employment opportunities galore. Not to mention the newly created post of "Mammoth handler" or even "carrot excavator". Such areas would rapidly become major exporters of raw chemicals such as "urea" and also fertilizer. (they would have to..)
IN fact set this up in a desert area, and gradually the mammoth output could maybe be used to terraform the local area. I'd suggest Africa, Mexico or Spain, they seem to be fairly smelly already, so perhaps they'd be ok with it.
This could be the end of mankinds energy shortage. mind you, I think we will need a fair few mammoths in order to properly replace one nuclear power plant. Lets see:
1 x GE mammoth we will guess is worth 30 horses, we'll further assume that mechanical to electrical conversion efficiency is only 60%. giving us 20Kw per beast. Now given that a nuclear power plant is good for around 1Gw, we will need getting on for 50,000 active mammoths to replace each nuclear plant.
Taking into account the part of the herd that will need to be resting, sleeping etc, that's a fair few animals, which means of course, that there will be work for all those unemployed ranch hands.
There seems to be all upside!
Fruitbat!