‘De-extinction’ of the woolly mammoth: A step closer

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

Morning Mix
By Sarah Kaplan April 24 at 4:58 AM
@sarahkaplan48



Eleftheria Palkopoulou inspects a woolly mammoth tusk to identify potential sites for DNA sampling on Sept. 3, 2013, in the ancient DNA lab at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, Sweden. (Love Dalen via AP)

Four thousand years after the woolly mammoth vanished from the Earth, scientists have deciphered the genetic blueprint that may offer a key to bringing it back.

By comparing DNA recovered from two long-dead individuals, a team of researchers have sequenced the species’s entire genome — effectively providing a gene-by-gene instruction manual on how to build a mammoth.

Their study of the newly sequenced genome, which was published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, offers all kinds of interesting insights into the animal’s past: when it first appeared, when it suffered from population bottlenecks, how it was affected by climate change.

But for people who work in the small but ambitious field of “mammoth de-extinction,” the genome is just as interesting for the role it might play in the animal’s future.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/24/de-extinction-and-the-wooly-mammoth-genome/

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Previously at DU: Woolly mammoth on a comeback?

[Demeter]

1. Could we use this technique to bring back FDR Democrats?

[warrant46]

2. The Pukes will Bring back Reagan

http://www.theonion.com/video/zombie-reagan-raised-from-grave-to-lead-gop,14385/

[Human101948]

3. Be the first on your block to have a genuine wooly mammoth fur coat!

Everybody on the block has a Beemer, but you can be be the focus of their envy with a mammoth fur! Call the Home Shopping Network for details.

[snooper2]

4. You are Human #101948? Holy Fuck You are old! So you are a member of Homo habilis

Have you stayed in the same general area for 2 million years or have you had a chance to get out and see the World yet?

[Human101948]

6. I am so old I remember Olduvai...

I loved Lucy back then.

[Brother Buzz]

7. I see what you did there

That's DUzy worthy!

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Well played....welcome to DU.

[Human101948]

16. Thanks!

Only another 45,000 posts to catch up to you.

[Aristus]

20. Question:

Was homo erectus a lot of fun?

[Human101948]

21. And upstanding citizen...

who always rose to the occasion.

[JudyM]

23. Good one! Still smiling...

Welcome to DU!! (We always need more humorists)

[Human101948]

25. Thanks!

I will try to live up to that designation.

[BlueCaliDem]

5. This is exciting news! It would be nice to bring back the Wooly Mammoth. I'm all for that!

Of course, it would have to be protected in the same way the Giant Panda is being protected today. I, for one, would love to see a Wooly Mammoth comeback!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

8. Clones are female so the first one should be named "Ellie"....

And think it's a possum.

[Larry Engels]

9. I'm not sure they should be f***ing around with this.

If they're thinking about cloning, there will be hundreds of failures for every success.

That's just one problem.

[AnnieBW]

10. Why not another, more recent species that is extinct?

Like the black rhino, or the Chinese river dolphin? Hell, even the passenger pigeon!

Just because we can resurrect a species, it doesn't mean that we should.

[Reter]

12. No love for the thylacine?

[AnnieBW]

24. Forgot about them!

Although, Australia has too many weird animals already.

[eppur_se_muova]

13. They're definitely working on the passenger pigeon ...

http://passengerpigeon.org/thefilm.html

[Xithras]

28. I think it has to do a bit with habitat

Resurrecting a species isn't simply a question of physically recreating a species, but of recreating the environments in which it lived and eliminating the pressures that originally lead to its extinction. In the case of both the black rhino and the Chinese river dolphin, a reintroduction of a recreated species into its original range would likely lead to a second extinction, because the pressures that lead to its original extinction are still present.

Archaeology seems to indicate that the mammoth went extinct because of two converging pressures. Climactic change following the end of the ice age reduced the arctic grasslands they relied on, causing the number of mammoth to decline and reducing their geographic range Simultaneously, hunting pressures from a growing human population depleted their numbers faster than they could reproduce.

Arctic regions today are only thinly populated, hunting can be controlled, and nearly all of the arctic nations are protective of their endangered species. Because the original subarctic grasslands that mammoths required DO still exist, the possibility exists of reintroducing the species WITHOUT the hunting and other external pressures that led them to extinction the first time around.

[LiberalElite]

11. Not sure, but - I think the world's moved on....nt

[jmowreader]

14. Come on...you know what will happen here

Three days after the woolly mammoth is resurrected, the NRA will demand a hunting license for one.

[Chan790]

17. Considering they lobbied here in CT in the 1980s to have ravens classified as game birds...

that seems likely. I'm not sure in what sanity ravens and crows are game-birds but I hope nobody is actually eating them.

[hobbit709]

18. And where will an extremely hairy elephant live during global warming?

Just might go extinct a second time.

[Telcontar]

19. How do they taste?

I see a franchise opportunity

[raccoon]

22. If anyone ever tries to do that with Neanderthals, I hope I'm not around then.nt

[Gothmog]

26. Bringing a life form back from extinction is cool

[GOLGO 13]

27. Calling dibs on the 1st batch of modified Saber-tooths that

grow only to the size of a Pomeranian. I shall call him "Ringo" & we will have great adventures together in my back yard.