Mammoth

[Benauld]

Hi all,

Firstly, I had no idea where to post this thread, here, the earth science forum, or even the pseudoscience forum, so if any of the mods think that there is a better home for it, please feel free to move it!

I recall sometime back in the 1990's, (maybe on the Discovery Channel), a Japanese "scientist" searching for a frozen mammoth. His aim was to recover intact, viable sperm from the animal and inseminate an African Elephant, in order to cross breed the resultant offspring and [tat, tad a ,tat, tat, tat, ta!]..."Ressurect" a Mammoth.

Does anybody know if any headway has been made since, to that end? And, whether any literature has been published on this subject?
Furthermore, what are the chances of this becoming a reality, and how likely is it to occur within our lifetimes (if at all)?

Thanks,

Ben

 

[orcot]

article 1 2005
[URL="http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/articles/2007_05_11/caredit_a0700066/(parent)/68"]http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/articles/2007_05_11/caredit_a0700066/(parent)/68[/URL]

say they expect to finish the whole genome in about a year if funding is provided.

article 2 2007
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/articles/2007_05_11/caredit_a0700066/(parent)/68

Soon there will be a waiting list of extinct animals to sequence." Now, Poinar is seeking funding to sequence the mammoth genome.

... funding funding funding.
the first cloned animals are proberly going to be something like a tasmanian tigers... Maybe in the next 10 years?

 

[Benauld]

It's a shame that research is limited by funding. However, I would have thought that a wide range of different companies would see the marketing opportunities and even kudos associated with cloning an extinct animal.

Perhaps they are discouraged from investing by the ethical implications invloved. It makes me wonder how the public at large would react to cloning an extinct animal? Personally, I think they would take it in their stride as they pretty much did with Dolly the sheep.

Speaking of the ethical issues involved, it's pretty difficult to draw a parallel. There would be few of such animals, and under such tightly controlled conditions, that the chance of a breeding pair escaping and affecting extant ecosystems is virtually none.

And as for the old, "We could, but does that mean we should?" point of view, well... imagine if they'd said that before the aeroplane was invented?

Anyway, I'm rambling so I'll stop... any other contributions regarding this, anyone?

 

[orcot]

I would see no morale inplications in cloning extinct creatures like mammoths or tasmian tigers to release them in the wild and perhaps eat them... Then again things like dinorsaurs who are so ancient that the atmosphere has changed considerbly and would have to wair oxygen masks or creating neanderthales who might demands pants seem very dangeres

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I would see no moral inplications in cloning extinct creatures like mammoths or Tasmanian tigers to release them in the wild and perhaps eat them.

You're being sarcastic of course. Tasmanian tigers were predators. Releasing them into the wild could really vandalize an ecosystem. Unless you could find a way for them to kill off the rabbits that Europeans introduced into Australia, without also killing off the wombats whose burrows they appropriate.

I don't know where you could put the mammoths. Arctic megafauna had a very narrow range, where the temperature was cold enough for comfort but food (rather a lot of it) could be accessed without being frozen into the tundra. The earth is warmer now, I'm not sure there's any place where mammoths could survive in the wild.

 

[GeoffP]

You couldn't "resurrect" the mammoth species in this way though, but rather only create mammoth-elephant hybrids, unless you wanted to make a doubled haploid or a recombinant inbred line. You'd need lots of money, though, as DH works pretty badly (95% failure rate minimum) and RIL takes exponentially longer the more chromosomes you have. There's also a two-chromosome shift between elephants and mammoths, so the hybrids would be aneuploid too.

 

[Benauld]

Those damn aneuploids!

I asked more out of curiosity, rather than harbouring any practical intentions. TBH, it's all a little too "Jurassic Park" for my liking. I'm sure there are numerous threads upon the implications of that particular subject here on sciforums, but right now it's late, and I can't be bothered to look!

Other than sending amber prices sky-rocketing, (which must have been handy for the Dominicans), I suspect that there was little, if any "real world" significance as a result of JP.

 

[orcot]

You're being sarcastic of course. Tasmanian tigers were predators. Releasing them into the wild could really vandalize an ecosystem.

They where extracted out of the ecosystem with verry little problems...

I would see little morale problems altough my first gues would be to put them in a zoo, no sence in funding a million into creating a animal to release it in a area to big for it to find a mate and end up getting shot by a 9 year old anyway.

But I do wonder is there a way to incubate a animal without a same species womb with nothing but DNA, can damaged DNA be restort and duplicated with today's technologys, could they be stimulated to become reproducting cells and murge in a different or artificial womb? I can't imagen that it's possible with today's technolgy

 

[blobrana]

“Wandering the snowy plains of Siberia up to 40,000 years ago lived not one, but two groups of long-haired and curly-tusked woolly mammoth, side by side.”

Read more

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Simply extracting some DNA from an extinct animal specimen does not allow you clone the animal.

Simply sequencing the genome of an extinct animal does not allow you clone the animal.

There is no way with current technology that scientists can clone a thylacine or a mammoth.

 

[Roman]

You're being sarcastic of course. Tasmanian tigers were predators. Releasing them into the wild could really vandalize an ecosystem. Unless you could find a way for them to kill off the rabbits that Europeans introduced into Australia, without also killing off the wombats whose burrows they appropriate.

Wouldn't do any more damage than everything else that's been introduced, really. Presumably, they were outcompeted by the abbo's introduction of the dingo.

 

[draqon]

maybe modifying the DNA a bit to allow its integration in nuclei will help the cell mitosis to undergo...

 

[orcot]

Simply extracting some DNA from an extinct animal specimen does not allow you clone the animal.

Simply sequencing the genome of an extinct animal does not allow you clone the animal.

There is no way with current technology that scientists can clone a thylacine or a mammoth.

Hercules Rockefeller, you say there is no way with current technology but would there realy have to be any mayor new discoveries for this to happen? What are the changes that the development of the current technology even whithout a Einstein popping up will be sufficient in a couple of years.

If so if you would bet in how many years will this change from a "no way" to a "perhaps but only under special conditions and..."

5 years 10?

 

[Orleander]

...Tasmanian tigers were predators. Releasing them into the wild could really vandalize an ecosystem. Unless you could find a way for them to kill off the rabbits that Europeans introduced into Australia, without also killing off the wombats whose burrows they appropriate......

do you think they would eat those damn cane toads?

 

[orcot]

http://packrat.aml.arizona.edu/Journal/v37n1/vartanyan.html
Some mammoths have only been extinct for 4000 year and their habitat has been ice coverd for that entire period. Is there any change that there might be some good DNA left?

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Hercules Rockefeller, you say there is no way with current technology but would there realy have to be any mayor new discoveries for this to happen?

Is there any change that there might be some good DNA left?

Hi orcot

It’s not a matter of simply having the DNA of an organism. If you want to clone a whole organism by somatic cell nuclear transfer you need cells. You need healthy living cells, or cells that were meticulously prepared then frozen and stored in liquid nitrogen. Simply managing to extract and amplify tiny fragments of DNA from thylacine or mammoth specimens means nothing with respect to our ability to clone whole new thylacines or mammoths. Even if someone managed to overcome the significant DNA fragmentation and piece together the whole genome of a mammoth or thylacine (which is highly unlikely given current technology), having the whole genome DNA of a thylacine or mammoth means nothing with respect to our ability to clone whole new thylacines or mammoths. You need healthy cells with pristnie nuclei.

I refer you to my postings in previous threads (one of them with you as OP)….

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=68961

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=54367

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=50967

 

[orcot]

I'never understand how some members can find their way so easly through old posts, but thx there where truly intersting.

Can I ask you abouth the methode they used for this experiment.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071025143311.htm

Here they claim that the've extracted and amplified a gene of a Neanderthal and introdused it into a (living) human cell. I assume it was alive because the gene produced/altered the pheomelanin level in it.

So am I correct to asume that we at least have the technology to produce living hybrid cells?
And how far could you go using this cut and paste technique?
Could you for example make 10 000 of these adaptations to a living cell? (Who was over 99% identical in the first place)

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Here they claim that the've extracted and amplified a gene of a Neanderthal

Yes.

and introdused it into a (living) human cell.

No. My understanding of what was said in that article is that the researchers engineered the same mutation found in the Neanderthal gene into the corresponding gene in the cell line they were using. In other words, they didn’t insert the Neanderthal gene into the human cells, they recapitulated the same mutation in the corresponding human gene in the human cells.

So am I correct to asume that we at least have the technology to produce living hybrid cells?

Yes. The technology to insert and express foreign DNA into cells/embryos has existed for some time. However, I believe that this has never been achieved for an extinct species until only the past few weeks when it was reported that University of Melbourne scientists managed to express thylacine DNA in a mouse embryo.

And how far could you go using this cut and paste technique? Could you for example make 10 000 of these adaptations to a living cell? (Who was over 99% identical in the first place)

Ahh, therein lies the rub (as Shakespeare wrote). No, you cannot. To “replace” a gene in a cell line or embryo with a foreign version of that same DNA (as opposed to simply inserting extra foreign DNA into a genome) is very tricky. As far as I know, the only organism in which it is possible (to an achievable, reproducible and sufficiently frequent extent) is the mouse (by using homologous recombination in murine embryonic stem cells). It’s hard enough to do it for a single gene, let alone multiple ones, let alone for a whole genome. Some people have the idea that an extinct species might be “resurrected” by gradually replacing the genome of an existing species with the genome of the extinct species, gene by gene. This is pure science fiction. It simply cannot be done with current technology, and that's even assuming that a whole genome's worth of DNA can be somehow isolated from an extinct species like a mammoth/thylacine. I’ll wager it can’t be done with immediate future technology either.