80% complete mapping the genome and according to co-author Stephan Schuster, we would be able to attempt cloning in 10-20 years.
Should we?
Personally, I’m going to say yes. The insights it could reveal are really unknowable without going there. Much of the technology we enjoy today is unforseen spinoff of pure research projects.
Second, not my personal favorite for a reason, but it’s going to count. If we don’t do it, someone else will and we might as well draw the kudos for ourselves. A success in that arena will drive funding for other branches of research.
Yes. Mammoths have been gone only a brief time, and they are close enough to elephants that we could do this with low risk of doing the animal harm. It would be a colossal scientific achievement.
As for those against… should we try to clone an animal that went extinct last year? If so, then why not the mammoth?
Personally, I think we should look at cloning the species whose extinction was, what’s the word, androgenic. Fix the problems we created, first. Then the themepark, after we’ve restocked the Dodos.
All the evidence points to the mammoths’ extinction as being caused, at least in part, by man. That seems to have been the case for much of the extinct megafauna of that era.
I think we need to be careful about bringing back long extinct life forms that we don’t know how to take care of or that might be harmful to the environment. And of course binging back extinct members of the human lineage opens a whole new level of concerns. I’d love to see that, but we need to really think it thru before we do it.
How would they fair as a food source? Any more economy then cows or pigs? On one hand you get alot of meat, on the other it takes longer and more food.
I say sure, why not? No practical value perhaps, but neither was going to the moon. It’s not like they breed like feral cats, so if in the worst case scenario one or two go wild then cavemen could kill them with stone spearheads so I’m pretty sure we can handle one.
I wonder if a wooly mammoth could breed with an elephant. I’ve read that they are more closely related to the Indian and the African elephants than Indian and African elephants are to each other, but I read that many years ago so subsequent info may have changed. (At the time it was said that humans and Neanderthals could not reproduce but they’re fairly certain now that they could and did.)
I don’t see a down side to bringing the species back for study. It’s not like they are that much different from elephants after all…or that it’s likely they will be released to the wild. Even if they were released into the equivalent of Yellowstone I don’t see them being a major ecological threat.
The coolness factor alone tells me that if we can do it we should give it a shot.
BTW, disagree with John Mace that there is positive evidence that humans were the cause of extinction. From what I understand it was climate change which could have been brought about by a meteor strike somewhere in upper Canada (in the ice…no crater). Humans may have been the ones to put the bullet in the back of the head, but the mammoth was already on it’s knees and pretty much going out by then. At least that’s my understanding. This being the 'dope of course I’m sure to be corrected if my memory is grossly wrong…
It’s oddly entertaining: it’s a comedy. Well, a would-be comedy. It’s kind of a zombie movie, with a giant undead Mammoth rampaging ever’whichaway. I enjoyed it because you just don’t expect snarky, self-referential humor in a Scifi Original (the sheriff’s name is Marion Morrison). With that lowered standard in mind, I recommend it. If you only watch a hundred movies this year, though, don’t bother with this one.
Yeah, but think what the Dodo would mean to the Thanksgiving table! I think we should consider such practicalities. I don’t see much profit possibility in a cloned Mammoth, beyond the themepark thingy. (Although, I wonder what their fur is like? Hmm. I’d love a Mammoth coat, come to think of it.)
The dodo, on the other hand, would be an awesome addition to the poultry industry.
On a serious note, I say yes, definitely yes. If we can do it we should. It’d be a major scientific achievement that would spur others. Mammoth DNA is 99.4% identical to existing elephants. It’d be interesting to see just what that .6% would get you.
I’m actually psyched about this. I’d be more psyched if the discovery weren’t made by American scientists, since they, no doubt, and through no fault of their own, would be restricted in the types and extent of experimentation that could be done, and possibly what would be shared, what with American Christianity’s moralist’s penchant for irrationally attempting to squelch scientific progress.
It probably would have been better to have the Russians, Swiss, or French make this type of discovery, where progress could proceed unfettered by a moralist element with too much sway.
