Mammoth 'could be reborn in four years'

[Bloodeagle]

Mammoth 'could be reborn in four years'

The woolly mammoth, extinct for thousands of years, could be brought back to life in as little as four years thanks to a breakthrough in cloning technology.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01803/mam_1803099b.jpg








By Julian Ryall in Tokyo 2:13PM GMT 13 Jan 2011
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8257223/Mammoth-could-be-reborn-in-four-years.html#disqus_thread)


Previous efforts in the 1990s to recover nuclei in cells from the skin and muscle tissue from mammoths found in the Siberian permafrost failed because they had been too badly damaged by the extreme cold.

But a technique pioneered in 2008 by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama, of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, was successful in cloning a mouse from the cells of another mouse that had been frozen for 16 years.

Now that hurdle has been overcome, Akira Iritani, a professor at Kyoto University, is reactivating his campaign to resurrect the species that died out 5,000 years ago.

"Now the technical problems have been overcome, all we need is a good sample of soft tissue from a frozen mammoth," he told The Daily Telegraph.

He intends to use Dr Wakayama's technique to identify the nuclei of viable mammoth cells before extracting the healthy ones.





The nuclei will then be inserted into the egg cells of an African elephant, which will act as the surrogate mother for the mammoth.
Professor Iritani said he estimates that another two years will be needed before the elephant can be impregnated, followed by the approximately 600-day gestation period.
He has announced plans to travel to Siberia in the summer to search for mammoths in the permafrost and to recover a sample of skin or tissue that can be as small as 3cm square. If he is unsuccessful, the professor said, he will ask Russian scientists to provide a sample from one of their finds.
"The success rate in the cloning of cattle was poor until recently but now stands at about 30 per cent," he said. "I think we have a reasonable chance of success and a healthy mammoth could be born in four or five years."

[Loddfafner]

Why an African elephant and not an Indian one? Aren't Indian elephants much more closely related to mammoths?

[Bloodeagle]

Why an African elephant and not an Indian one? Aren't Indian elephants much more closely related to mammoths?

Good question, perhaps they are looking to the larger size of the African elephant.:confused:

[The Journeyman]

Maybe african elephants are more fertile.

[The Journeyman]

Good question, perhaps they are looking to the larger size of the African elephant.:confused:

That's a good point, the size of a mammoth calf at full-term is unknown as of yet.

Sorry this reminded me of a funny skit. :D

Csj7vMKy4EI

[Vasconcelos]

Playing God, already, are we? :\

[Beorn]

Does the Mammoth want to come back? I'm sure things happen for a reason in life, a premise scientists seem (to me at least) to fail in grasping.

[Guapo]

I'm sure things happen for a reason in life

So you believe in destiny?

[Agrippa]

Does the Mammoth want to come back? I'm sure things happen for a reason in life, a premise scientists seem (to me at least) to fail in grasping.

Probably this thing - if it happens at all - happens for a reason too? How can you know, if there is a "bigger than life plan" of whatever kind, something like destiny, that it the cloning of Mammoths is not part of the plan? :cool:

Thinking that way, we shouldn't even use computers probably or breed cattle and wheat...

As long as humans don't become to cruel, careless or inhumane, I see no reason to don't use such techniques and such an experiment could answer a lot of questions about that animal.

Actually that's like a second chance for the species - probably we breed them in the next ice age, as a substitute for cattle ;)

[Osweo]

Japs steaming ahead with science over on their homogenous islands, while we wallow in mediaeval problems like religious conflict and diseases being reintroduced from the Third World. :tsk:

I'd love to see a Mammoth, though! :) Maybe Russian oligarchs will start competing in the prestige of having the biggest herd... :p

[2DREZQ]

I can't wait until they have a hunting season on them! Just the excuse I need to buy an even BIGGER rifle!

[Óttar]

Awesome. People better not fuck it up, talking about ethics. Awesome shit happens way too slowly. Fuck 10 year plans and referendums that last 20 years, do that shit overnight!

[lei.talk]

http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee14/joshdehonney/Irish_Elk.jpg (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GZAZ_enUS281US281&q=irish+elk)

[Don Brick]

T. Rex is next.

[2DREZQ]

T. Rex is next.


Barrett makes a rifle for that...

[Loddfafner]

elephantines destroy the environment; these beauties graze - very ecological/ranchable/huntable

Much of the North American ecology coevolved with mammoths and mastodons. (http://darwiniana.org/ghostsof.htm) The thorns on honey locusts and the prickliness of holly trees might have developed as defenses against them. Certain plants may have depended on them for reproduction. There has been plausible speculation about osage oranges and even avocados.

[Agrippa]

T. Rex is next.

Well, the Dinosaur-DNA seems to be too damaged though. Remind you, you can find still frozen flesh from the Mammoths in the Russian soil, so the conditions for conservation are excellent for such an ancient animal - unlike many others.

[NordicPower]

Even if they do manage to clone a mammoth, it's only one, and has no one to breed with, if they cloned two, the line would develop genetic problems from inbreeding. So if they do manage to clone one, it will most likely only be a passing curiosity. There is little chance of them being restored to a viable species.

[Osweo]

elephantines destroy the environment; these beauties graze - very ecological/ranchable/huntable
Why assume the Mammoths were destructive? THey were knocking around for millions of years till we wiped the poor sods out....

I see what you did there, Lei.... ;)

You just wanted to force some fool to look up what these beasties eat, you bugger! :p

Ahem, an excellent source from Norway's Bergen University;
http://www.bjerknes.uib.no/pages.asp?id=1587&kat=8&lang=2

The ecology of a Pleistocene mammoth’s last meal
While Scandinavia was covered in ice during the last glacial maximum, a
mammoth lived and died in a very different climate and vegetation in
unglaciated north-east Siberia.

In spring, 22,500 years ago, a large old male mammoth died in a sheltered hollow in the full-glacial tundra of Yakutia in N. Siberian, near Yukagir. Mud slumped over him in the summer and he was frozen in the permafrost. His body was discovered in 2002; his head with its impressive tusks, front legs, and part of the stomach and intestinal tract were preserved. What did the mammoth eat?

A 6-ton mammoth would need to eat about 180 kg of plant material each day. Therefore, dung preserved in the lower intestine was subjected to a multiproxy array of analyses both botanical (pollen, spores, and macrofossils) and biochemical (plant DNA, biolipids, fecal biomarkers, bile acids), to determine the mammoth’s diet. The dung was 80% grassy material, herbs, and mosses and 20% dwarf-willow twigs, identified as Salix arctica. The first sign of a new annual ring in the twigs and the presence of well developed leaf primordia in the Salix buds indicate ingestion in early spring. Spores of coprophilous fungi inside the intestine demonstrate coprophagy; the mammoth ate dung. Modern elephants and many herbivores show coprophagy. The mammoth lacked bile acids, just like modern elephants, and their absence in the dung implies that the mammoth ate mammoth dung.

Botanical analyses of the dung using pollen, plant macrofossils and mosses, and plant DNA showed that the mammoth lived in dry, windy, dusty, treeless tundra dominated by grasses, Kobresia myosuroides (sedge), Salix arctica, and herbs; the so-called ‘Mammoth Steppe’. He also grazed damper vegetation by streams and snow-beds. Seeds of snow-bed plants in his last meal indicate that these had already been uncovered in early spring and were eaten with the new vegetation. Previously, based on the results of pollen analyses, the treeless ‘Mammoth Steppe’ has been reconstructed as an extinct (no modern analogue), grass-rich biome over Beringia (the area of Siberia and Alaska and the linking Bering Land Bridge). It was productive enough to support herds of large grazing animals and their predators. Further palaeoecological work involving plant macrofossils and more detailed pollen identifications has shown that the vegetation was not uniform but was differentiated according to water supply, depending on wind exposure, slope, aspect, snow-lie, etc. into a mosaic of communities reminiscent of remnant areas of grassy tundra in Siberia and Alaska today. Summer temperatures were only a little cooler than they are today with clear skies and low precipitation but winters were cold. Sparse snow cover allowed exposed grasses to provide adequate winter fodder for the herds.

The Yukagir mammoth was old, as shown by his tusks and his worn teeth. The willow twigs were broken but not crushed, so perhaps he was unable to obtain sufficient nutrition from his food. He suffered from ankylosing sphondylitis in his upper back, so maybe he ate a lot of willow as self-medication to obtain pain relief (aspirin). The stress of surviving the bitter winter proved to be too great and he lay down in the sheltered hollow and died. :cry2

Reference:
‘The ecological implications of a Yakutian mammoth’s last meal’. Bas van Geel, André Aptroot, Claudia Baittinger, Hilary H. Birks, Ian D. Bull, Hugh B. Cross, Richard P. Evershed, Barbara Gravendeel, Erwin J.O. Kompanje, Peter Kuperus, Dick Mol, Klaas G. J. Nierop, Jan Peter Pals, Alexei N. Tikhonov, Guido van Reenen, Peter H. van Tienderen (2008). Quaternary Research 69, 361-376.
I'm wondering if the mammoths didn't somehow HELP the ecosystems up there. Perhaps they held back the taiga (http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FTaiga&ei=IRkyTZqyFs2NjAe6p_2yCg&usg=AFQjCNHkrFH1ObYc7_sJQOLonVCjz5s9IA)? As the link says, the taiga has its uses, but I've been there, and it's pretty miserable and monotonous. Perhaps the 'lesotundra' or parkland type environment of the 'forest-tundra' was kept more extensive in the Mammoth's day. When I was up in the Urals, there were even clumps of juniper beyond the arctic circle - would this sort of variety have been more common when the sea of conifers was kept at bay? Might Mammoth disturbance of the ground and river beds have stimulated more dwarf willow growth?

and see;
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%82%D1%8B
(The RUSSIAN article on Wiki is ten times more complete and interesting, even with some Siberian and Red Indian legends about the animals.)

But, seems to me that it might be a good idea cloning summat a little more manage-able first;

There was also a race of dwarf woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island, north of Siberia, within the Arctic Circle.

а карликовые виды Mammuthus exilis и Mammuthus lamarmorae не превышали 2 метра в высоту и были массой до 900 кг - 2 metres tall and 900 kg
... with the bonus of being ABSURDLY cute. :strokebeard:
_Gal_rMKczA
;)


http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee14/joshdehonney/Irish_Elk.jpg (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GZAZ_enUS281US281&q=irish+elk)
I saw a red deer in the wood today. About a dozen yards from me. GINORMOUS so she was, like a COW! I can do without meeting her twice the size Great Uncle. :eek::D

[Agrippa]

Even if they do manage to clone a mammoth, it's only one, and has no one to breed with, if they cloned two, the line would develop genetic problems from inbreeding. So if they do manage to clone one, it will most likely only be a passing curiosity. There is little chance of them being restored to a viable species.

Well, it is possible to breed them out of a couple - even if the genetic degeneration is a threat.

Many local races and species might have had just two original ancestors...

Also, if they can do it two times, they can easily do it a third and fourth time as well, because as I said, the material is plenty enough :)

[Peasant]

An important question to be answered if mammoths are bred... do they taste good?

:D

[Klärchen]

As long as humans don't become to cruel, careless or inhumane...

Optimist! http://smilys.net/kolobok_smilies/smiley1692.gif

[Loddfafner]

An important question to be answered if mammoths are bred... do they taste good?
:D

Explorers have eaten mammoth meat (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2725/prehistoric-its-whats-for-dinner) found frozen in the tundra, though the report I read long ago of Russian scientists becoming ill after a mammoth banquet might be an urban legend. Fresh mammoth, without that freezer burn, might taste better.

[Germanicus]

I read long ago of Russian scientists becoming ill after a mammoth banquet might be an urban legend. Fresh mammoth, without that freezer burn, might taste better.

Yeah, mum always taught me to buy fresh when you can.:)

[Agrippa]

Optimist! http://smilys.net/kolobok_smilies/smiley1692.gif

Rather not, I just wanted to limit it, because I know that is a real threat, but in almost every respect.

You can say that if humans become too much of that bad things, they will ruin everything, yet that shouldn't stop us form trying hard to make things better, because if we don't even try, we will fail for sure. If we try, we can still fail, but at least we might have had a chance...

And I'm more concerned about surveillance and control techniques, Capitalist exploitation and total control by a corrupted few, genetic manipulation of plants and micro organisms, especially for biological warfare and of course nuclear technologies and weapons, than cloning a Mammoth or changing some mammal genes - including human ones if being secure enough and doing something good for our future.

Because in the end, if the Mammoth experiment goes wrong, you can still just shoot it, but try to shoot an aggressive bacteria, virus or plant once you lost control.

That's what I'm really afraid of, if talking about genetic techniques.

The rabbits in Australia and the scientists which tested a disease used as a bio-weapon on them on an "supposedly" isolated island could tell you a story...

[Albion]

20% dwarf-willow twigs, identified as Salix arctica.

Salix Arctica from the pictures I've seen seem to be small and low growing, hardly worthy of being called shrubs, if that's mostly what they were eating then no wonder they went extinct. :thumb001:


http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee14/joshdehonney/Irish_Elk.jpg
Yeah, Irish Elk could be next, It'd be a game-hunters wet dream. :D

[Osweo]

Salix Arctica from the pictures I've seen seem to be small and low growing, hardly worthy of being called shrubs, if that's mostly what they were eating then no wonder they went extinct. :thumb001:


I don't have my photos to hand, but I've seen it up close and personal. If you look at a map and find the railway line that crosses the Ural just southeast of Vorkuta, you'll see where I was. In the Arctic Circle, but just on the edge of the tundra and forest-tundra parkland that I mentioned above.

We got off the train and trudged through boggy tundra for a few days, and this is mostly grass, berries and small weeds. Sometimes, though, there are these clumps of dwarf willow, and they're a REAL pain to get through.

They grow taller than you think. Four foot or so. It's like a mangrove swamp, all knotted together. I was struggling in one massive patch on the banks of the River Kharuta, and it was hell, I tell you. Disorienting, miserable and time-consuming. I was in fishermen's waders, and you were half climbing, half wading. Really awkward, as they're so dense.

I can well believe that you could feed a hefty animal on them, if they roamed a large area, and like I said, if the mammoths were ripping them up, shitting all over, churning up the ground and spreading the seeds, they might be more common than they are now.

[Murphy]

Has anyone bothered to ask.. why? What in the holy fuck is the bastarding point? It's a fucking hairy elephant. Shave a tiger and paste the hair on a fucking Indian cow and charge kids £5 a look.

[Wyn]

Has anyone bothered to ask.. why? What in the holy fuck is the bastarding point? It's a fucking hairy elephant. Shave a tiger and paste the hair on a fucking Indian cow and charge kids £5 a look.

Come on, it's a mammoth for frick's sake. It's fascinating. For scientists there's a whole scientific purpose behind it all, which I appreciate, but regardless of this I simply find bringing the mammoth 'back to life' so to speak an amazing prospect.

A MAMMOTH!! Think of the clothing, furniture, and food you can make out of those things. Fancy having a mammoth-skin rug.

Bet you're getting more excited now, aye?

[Bloodeagle]

I don't have my photos to hand, but I've seen it up close and personal. If you look at a map and find the railway line that crosses the Ural just southeast of Vorkuta, you'll see where I was. In the Arctic Circle, but just on the edge of the tundra and forest-tundra parkland that I mentioned above.

We got off the train and trudged through boggy tundra for a few days, and this is mostly grass, berries and small weeds. Sometimes, though, there are these clumps of dwarf willow, and they're a REAL pain to get through.

They grow taller than you think. Four foot or so. It's like a mangrove swamp, all knotted together. I was struggling in one massive patch on the banks of the River Kharuta, and it was hell, I tell you. Disorienting, miserable and time-consuming. I was in fishermen's waders, and you were half climbing, half wading. Really awkward, as they're so dense.



Similar to our Alder thickets. :)
It would be cool if they could set aside a few million hectares of Russian, Canadian or Alaskan tundra for the study and development of these creatures.
They could even profit off of the wool and ivory that these beasts produce. :thumbs up

[lei.talk]

It'd be a game-hunters wet dream. :D

http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee14/joshdehonney/Irish_Elk.jpg (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GZAZ_enUS281US281&q=irish+elk)


:thumbs that would be the most moral method
of financing the research: voluntarily (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism).

my white-tail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_deer) ranch research-station (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)#501.28c.29.283.29)
is funded thusly

and was an excellent investment (http://forums.skadi.net/showthread.php?p=610541#post610541).

[Bloodeagle]

If they could recreate the Pygmy Mammoths (http://www.nps.gov/chis/historyculture/pygmymammoth.htm) of California's Channel Islands, they would surely become a hit with the exotic livestock crowd.

[2DREZQ]

My luck, I'll buy the rifle, then find out instead of a wooly mammoth, they cloned fuzzy dice...

[The Ripper]

I wonder if mammoths can be domesticated in the same manner as elephants? Once peak oil truly hits, they'll make excellent workers for the forestry industry. :D

[2DREZQ]

I wonder if mammoths can be domesticated in the same manner as elephants? Once peak oil truly hits, they'll make excellent workers for the forestry industry. :D


Since we're cloning anyway, why not modify them genetically to piss Light Sweet Crude oil?

[Sahson]

I've just ordered one, and specifically ordered one that craps gold, and pukes rainbows.

[2DREZQ]

I've just ordered one, and specifically ordered one that craps gold, and pukes rainbows.

I want one that eats sawdust and poops plywood, so I can build a bigger garage.

[Bloodeagle]

I want one that eats sawdust and poops plywood, so I can build a bigger garage.

You must learn to build with a different medium. Do as our distant ancestors did and build in bone and ivory. :D

http://www.elephant.se/images/mammoth_bone_house2.jpg

[2DREZQ]

You must learn to build with a different medium. Do as our distant ancestors did and build in bone and ivory. :D

http://www.elephant.se/images/mammoth_bone_house2.jpg

Yeah, the building code inspector from the city is going to love that one...

[poiuytrewq0987]

Probably this thing - if it happens at all - happens for a reason too? How can you know, if there is a "bigger than life plan" of whatever kind, something like destiny, that it the cloning of Mammoths is not part of the plan? :cool:

Thinking that way, we shouldn't even use computers probably or breed cattle and wheat...

As long as humans don't become to cruel, careless or inhumane, I see no reason to don't use such techniques and such an experiment could answer a lot of questions about that animal.

Actually that's like a second chance for the species - probably we breed them in the next ice age, as a substitute for cattle ;)

If God didn't want us to clone then he would've not given us the ability to do such feat in the first place.

[2DREZQ]

Sung to the tune of "Home on the range"

"Oh give me a clone, with its Y chromasome, changed to X,

Then when we're alone, just me and my clone,

We'll both think of nothing but sex."


Gives a whole new meaning to "Go F*ck yourself!", doesn't it?

*Credit for the song goes to Harlan Ellison, and some other guy I can't remember.

[The Lawspeaker]

Barrett makes a rifle for that...
Teach me how to shoot and I'll be hunting ! ;)
What's on for tonight ? T-Rex stuffed with Mammoth.. and some dodo on the side.

[2DREZQ]

Teach me how to shoot and I'll be hunting ! ;)
What's on for tonight ? T-Rex stuffed with Mammoth.. and some dodo on the side.


I would be more than happy to let you experience hunting and shooting, American Style. Just pop over to my side of the globe.

I'll even take you T-Rex hunting. All you need is a large bottle of rum and a vivid imagination. Oh, leave the guns at home!

[Bloodeagle]

I'll even take you T-Rex hunting. All you need is a large bottle of rum and a vivid imagination. Oh, leave the guns at home!
Fossil hunting? Sounds like fun.

[Radojica]

Fossil hunting? Sounds like fun.

Actually, it is. Before faculty I finished, I spent one year on Faculty of Mining and Geology engineering studies and I wanted to study for paleontologist, but too much chemistry and math putted me off...

It's great science worth every minute of education and time spent in the field :)

[Wyn]

I'm just waiting till I can buy my girlfriend a mammoth-skin coat. Imagine how much that'd light up a woman's face. Fuck that mink shit.

[2DREZQ]

Fossil hunting? Sounds like fun.

The biggest T-Rex ever found was discovered a little over a half-days drive from where I live. "Sue" is now on display in Chicago.

No reason we can't find another one.


Or we canjust spend the day shooting prairie dogs.:thumbs up

[Loddfafner]

I'm just waiting till I can buy my girlfriend a mammoth-skin coat. Imagine how much that'd light up a woman's face. Fuck that mink shit.

Not necessarily. I could see a lot of girls taking a "mammoth" coat wrong.

[Bloodeagle]

Not necessarily. I could see a lot of girls taking a "mammoth" coat wrong.

I would imagine the kind of girl that would wear a shaggy mammoth coat would be predominantly CM. :D The weight of the hide and the fur would be better used thrown across the top of a yurt on the wind scoured steppe.
I think I just had an ancestral memory. :eek:

[Bloodeagle]

Although this is not a new news story, I thought it would be worth posting. :)


Photo in the News: "Lovely" Baby Mammoth Found Frozen in Russia

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/images/070711-mammoth-picture_big.jpg
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/cgi-bin/email2friend.pl)



July 11, 2007—Talk about a mammoth surprise.
A Russian hunter traipsing through Russia's remote Arctic Yamalo-Nenetsk region in May noticed what he thought was a reindeer carcass sticking out of the damp snow. (See a map of Russia and its remote Siberian regions (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=russi&Mode=d&SubMode=w).)
On closer inspection, the "reindeer" turned out to be a 40,000-year-old baby mammoth, perfectly encased in ice.
The six-month-old female mammoth is the most well-preserved example yet found of the beasts, which lumbered across the Earth during the last Ice Age, 1.8 million to 11,500 years ago.
"It's a lovely little baby mammoth indeed, found in perfect condition," Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Science's Zoological Institute, told the Reuters news agency.
At 110 pounds (50 kilograms) and 51 inches long (130 centimeters long), the baby is the size of a large dog, Reuters reported.
Scientists are banking on the female—named "Lyuba" after the Russian hunter's wife—to reveal some of the genetic secrets of the prehistoric giants.
That's because Lyuda's excellent state—intact except for her shaggy locks—makes her a veritable treasure trove for research.
Emerging DNA technologies have already allowed some scientists to consider resurrecting the mammoth. (Read about the resurrection debate (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/070625-dna-resurrection.html).)
Meanwhile, the newfound body will undergo three-dimensional computer mapping at Japan's Jikei University, followed by an autopsy at the Zoological Museum in St. Petersburg. The Ice Age toddler will end up on display in the Russian Arctic town of Salekhard.