Possible living cells found in Mammoth fragments, is cloning next?

It seems that possible living cells were found in Mammoth fragments during a Siberian expedition:

Russia's North-Eastern Federal University said an international team of researchers had discovered mammoth hair, soft tissues and bone marrow some 328 feet (100 meters) underground during a summer expedition in the northeastern province of Yakutia.

Expedition chief Semyon Grigoryev said Korean scientists with the team had set a goal of finding living cells in the hope of cloning a mammoth. Scientists have previously found bones and fragments but not living cells.

As a result they are now hoping that they can clone the Mammoth and possibly bring it back to roaming the earth!

Scientists already have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth from balls of mammoth hair found frozen in the Siberian permafrost. Some believe it's possible to recreate the prehistoric animal if they find living cells in the permafrost.

I personally CANNOT wait till I get to see these things brought back to life. What do you guys think ? Do you think that this is good idea or they went extinct for a reason ?

news.yahoo.com...

reply to post by blackmetalmist


I love this type of stuff! By all means, if we can bring them back, lets do it!

I find it odd that they claim it will take months to determine if any living cells are in the tissue samples, maybe someone versed in this field can point out why it takes so long.

reply to post by blackmetalmist


How are those cells still living?
IDK but I would love to see one of those big shaggy beasts walking around!

Originally posted by TheGreatDivider
reply to post by blackmetalmist

 

How are those cells still living?
IDK but I would love to see one of those big shaggy beasts walking around!

I believe the cells found in the bone marrow are probably preserved in really freezing ice that it prevented them from dying and had them remain in a frozen state. I just dont know how fast they will live once they start thawing. Im guessing they probably will have to act fast and work with them with sensitive equipment.

I think it's a bad idea, I personally would not want to deal with that sort of thing running around thank you very much! Can you imagine the destructive abilities of something that large?

Originally posted by MaMaa
I think it's a bad idea, I personally would not want to deal with that sort of thing running around thank you very much! Can you imagine the destructive abilities of something that large?

I hope that they at least have a special place where they plan to put them. Otherwise, we all know how Jurassic Park movies came about

I do imagine them being gentle beasts like elephants unless they are threatened, but we really wont know their behavior unless we have them walking in front of us.

i am 45 now and have been hearing this since i was a kid in junior school were gonna bring back the mamoth i will believe it when i see it but i wanna packeoderm as a pet hurry up

The science geek in me is thrilled but how long before mammoth meat becomes a ridiculously expensive "delicacy" and we see a bunch of instagrams of rich kids sitting on their backs while the animal stares off into oblivion, waiting for death. We dont half know how to treat the majestic animals that are still here. Now they want to bring back more to lock up and gawk at.

Where would they live? The mammoths came from an age where it was a lot colder than its is now. Wouldn't they be to hot with their big thick coats?

Originally posted by blackmetalmist
I personally CANNOT wait till I get to see these things brought back to life. What do you guys think ? Do you think that this is good idea or they went extinct for a reason ?

I don't think we know exactly what killed them, but we do know Siberia isn't a very hospitable place so we're not sure if they could survive there today. Their habitat was likely greatly reduced in size, killing off most of them, and man may have hunted the few remaining to extinction.

Here's a thought on cloning:

www.evidencebasedcryonics.org...

Oddly enough, though cloning offers no hope of bringing back the same individual organism, the article ends with a pro-death quote from Tom Gilbert, “an expert in ancient DNA at Copenhagen University who with Schuster and Webb pioneered the harvesting of mammoth DNA from hair,” who “questions both the utility and wisdom of cloning extinct species. – ‘If you can do a mammoth, you can do anything else that’s dead, including your grandmother. But in a world in global warming and with limited resources for research, do you really want to bring back your dead grandmother?’”

It would be a shame to clone them and then find there's no natural habitat where they can survive. I think we need to make sure they would have a suitable habitat first.

If there are cells which are still alive after their host died several thousand years ago and wound up buried in ice, then no, no I don't think it's a good idea to clone it. For all we know, it's DNA has already been tainted by a bacteria residing on a meteorite that hit the earth and ended the party for the dinosaurs.

Think of something besides what would be cool folks. Therein you'll find logic and reason.

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
Where would they live? The mammoths came from an age where it was a lot colder than its is now. Wouldn't they be to hot with their big thick coats?

Not really, just like Polar bears in zoos across the world, penguins etc.

Originally posted by MaMaa
I think it's a bad idea, I personally would not want to deal with that sort of thing running around thank you very much! Can you imagine the destructive abilities of something that large?

Why think negative? Elephants are big and so are whales. Sure they have their own share of power and destruction (mainly elephants) but lets not get carried away along the hollywood portrayal of big, powerful and destructive theme.

Originally posted by chasingbrahman
If there are cells which are still alive after their host died several thousand years ago and wound up buried in ice, then no, no I don't think it's a good idea to clone it. For all we know, it's DNA has already been tainted by a bacteria residing on a meteorite that hit the earth and ended the party for the dinosaurs.

Think of something besides what would be cool folks. Therein you'll find logic and reason.

Which if that is the case being... we may end up with something much more different than a Mammoth> Yeah that probably wont be such a good idea!

We as humans cant even look after the animals we have here on the earth at the moment, we are in the middle of a massive species extinction event that's caused by us! So I don't think its a good idea to be bringing back animals that have gone extinct, they should be sorting out our current situation 1st.

I suspect there is something in our own DNA that draws some of us with an irresistible fascination towards Mammoths. That ancient hunter even if only a scavenger is still there inside us.

Originally posted by blackmetalmist

Originally posted by MaMaa
I think it's a bad idea, I personally would not want to deal with that sort of thing running around thank you very much! Can you imagine the destructive abilities of something that large?

I hope that they at least have a special place where they plan to put them. Otherwise, we all know how Jurassic Park movies came about

I do imagine them being gentle beasts like elephants unless they are threatened, but we really wont know their behavior unless we have them walking in front of us.

I just can't imagine a place other than maybe an island that it would be safe to take that risk. What if they would be completely different than we imagined they would be and it did end up very badly!

I don't want to test it out and ever have one in front of me, but by all means.. you first, lemme know how it goes!

Speaking of extinct animals andn such, I read somewhere that chickens are the closest living relative to the tyrannosaurus-rex. www.guardian.co.uk...

I guess I'm just wondering if we can get clone viable DNA out of museum pieces and such? And should we start cloning animals on the verge of extinction, or at least getting preservable DNA for future generations?

That was from powerdrone in the other thread.

You can extract DNA, but it would be pretty darn fragmented, and you can't really clone something yet unless you have an embryo from the same species (or a very similar one). It might work with elephant embryos, but even then, it wouldn't be the exact same thing. And that's assuming that you have enough workable DNA.

reply to post by Dodger13


That's the thing though, if they can do it with a creature that has been extinct for such a long time, it opens up possibilities of saving more modern creatures, extinct or on the verge of.

I would love to see the Dodo brought back, imagine all the new comedy material!