[QUOTE=Mangetout]
I think the default assumption with any ancient remains should be that we can’t clone it, not with the technology of today or the near future. There may very well be sufficient material to be able to map the genome of the animal (essentially a jigsaw puzzle - reconstructing it logically by finding overlapping sequences in many broken pieces, etc), but even if we have it fully mapped, that’s not enough - because we don’t have anything like the technology required to rebuild it chemically and physically, in order to insert it into a living cell.
Seriously, any time any fossil or remains turns up with anything resembling soft tissue, there’s a knee-jerk reaction from the media and general public: ‘so we can clone it, right? right?’ - the reported end quote sounds to me very much like a scientist brushing off just such an excited, hopelessly-optimistic question, without actually slapping it down or rolling his eyes and saying “yeah, whatever”.
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Actually, with an extremely concentrated effort, I have little doubt that we could clone it. The technology is young, but it’s there. The problem is that cloning an entire genome by our present methods (plasmids) is unwieldy. We can clone short fragments easily. That’s how we replicate single genes. We can clone longer fragments fairly well too. But unfortunately, we can’t just insert a whole mammalian genome onto an E. coli plasmid.
It is theoretically possible at this point, if, say, there were a massively concentrated scientific effort, to map the genome and to then reconstruct it piecemeal. And inserting it into a living cell is really no problem. That happens all the time.
Which is not to say that it will happen, yet. But it WILL happen, and I don’t think it’s really that far off.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Have we the technology to construct chromosomes, from scratch?
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Thing is, we don’t have to. The code to construct the histones around which DNA coils itself to form chromosomes is contained within the DNA itself.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Maybe I’m a little behind the times, and the process gaps we’d have to cross are not quite as broad as I thought.
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Oh, they’re still huge. But if we can map the genome, it’s POSSIBLE (but not practical yet, without a massive Department of Defense-style funding source) to clone it. It’s mostly a matter of refining the process at this point.
[QUOTE=phouka]
And did you know that mammoths are more closely related to Asian elephants than Asian and African elephants are?
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I get it now. Sorry, I just couldn’t parse it at first - I read it as if you were saying were closer to Asian Elephants than Asian Elephants were to Asian Elephants, and African ones.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
I doubt it - any more than we could clone a cow from beef jerky.
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You could clone a walking Beef Jerky Beast though. Tough but tasty.
I could’ve sworn that someone was talking about retro-breeding mammoths from existing elephants (without trying to clone, or use frozen sperm), but I can’t find anything about it.