- Me riding my future mammoth.
Today’s important prehistoric creature news: Mammoths for everyone!!!! Ok, maybe not yet, but according to this article:
A team of researchers will attempt to resurrect the species using cloning technologies after obtaining tissue this summer from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian mammoth research laboratory. It has already established a technique to extract DNA from frozen cells.
Um, YES PLEASE! And then make me one of those cute dog-sized dinos they just identified! (Have at the obvious Jurassic Park references in comments. I bet we can recite the whole movie together, kids.)
He did it. That crazy son of a bitch, he did it.
Jurassic Park notwithstanding, they can’t get DNA out of dino fossils. They’re able to get this because they’re frozen, not fossilized. Guess you’ll have to wait for that time machine to go back and get your own.
Clever girl.
@2 I know I know. But I can dream that someone will find a way, right? I WANT MY DINO-PET!
@2 Jurassic Park got around that from extracting DNA from dinosaur blood found in biting insects trapped in amber. It’s important that you know.
Where’s Jeff Goldblum’s insightful yet stuttering rebuke when you need it?
Forget the baby dinosaurs, can we engineer a dog-sized mammoth? Can you imagine a baby elephant you can pet?
Isn’t this the second time they’ve tried this clone-a-mammoth thing?
Here comes the most expensive umbrella stand ever.
What happened with the auroch they were bring back from extinction?
Mammoth burgers, a reality?
Don’t know about that; elephant burgers aren’t exactly a delicacy.
And you know about DINOSAUR WARS on PBS tonight, right? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperien…
@13 Yes, I am looking forward to it!!!
@2: We’ve gotten preserved soft tissues out of dinosaur bones, and we’ve gotten enough DNA to sequence chunks of it out of (fossilized) Neanderthal bones. It’s pretty likely that we’ll find bits of dinosaur DNA.
Enough to clone from? Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
Hold on to your butts.
@15 That’s ok, we can fill in the gaps with amphibian DNA!
Don’t know about you, but I’m holding out for one of those adorable miniature panda-mammoths.
is anyone thinking about the life that this surely intelligent being will lead? elephants are very social creatures who need a rich social life and interaction with their own kind. mammoths are not elephants but pretty dammed close, i suspect. they better have a plan for making sure the mammoth is happy.
@20 Most mammals can transfer familial relations onto other species. My cat and I agree on this point. I vote for it to be raised with a couple baby buffalo along with it’s human caretakers, I’m sure it would be fine emotionally.
@17: No we can’t.
Life finds a way.
What I want to know is why would they clone a mammoth when they could be cloning a saber-toothed tiger? That couldn’t possibly go wrong.
@21 LOL yes I am well aware that not only is that impossible, it would be a terrible idea even if we could.
19. I would be worried about it too. I would think it would grow up with its elephant mommy and sisters.