8 years ago
14
Scientists edge closer to bringing back the woolly mammoth
A 21st century version of the woolly mammoth could soon roam the earth, helped in part by new insights into the ice-age pachyderm's genome.
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http://www.csmonitor.com
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I hope scientist don't go further with dinosaurs if they succeed. We have Jurassic park warning us.
They have already begun to "reverse engineer" a chicken. I dont think we will ever see a t rex or something like that in our lifetime, but we may be very close to a Jurassic Park.
Don't get me wrong, the idea of bringing the Woolly Mammoth back from extinction (or hybridizing it with the Asian elephant) is amazing, but wouldn't it make more sense to focus this research on bring back a more recently extinct animal - like the Tasmanian Tiger - animals that still have a habitat to go home to. Woolly Mammoths wouldn't have an environment to thrive in. At the most, we would only see them in zoos.
I think you make a good point, if we have technology like this I think a more responsible application would be reversing some of the damage we've caused in recent history.
Woolly mammoths were adapted to extremely cold temperatures. What with average global temperatures rising quickly, the timing on this is questionable.
It's definitely possible to create artificially cold environments for mammoths if/when we bring them back. I doubt they'll ever do well in the wild, but we could likely see them popping up in zoos.
While you are correct, that overall global temperatures are rising quickly, that has widespread impacts on specific climates, causing a variety of changes. This is why, as an educator, I don't use the phrase "global warming" but "climate change" instead. The reality of climate change is that some places will get colder and others will get warmer as weather patterns change. Just ask someone living in the Northeast US the past two winters.
True. However, the overall effect of temperature increases worldwide mean that many of those changing weather patterns are unstable and unlikely to continue in the long term. The planet is going to be a lot less suitable for species adapted to colder temperatures. The poles, for example, will always have colder temperatures than you'll find at the equator but they're still going to average higher temperatures once our climate settles into its new stable state.
Meaning that the planet will be less hospitable to wooly mammoths.
Check out these articles for more information: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/clim...ing-will-make-our-winters-colder-9819825.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Global-Warming-Cold-Winters.html (This one does a great job of explaining the global effect that causes colder winters)
Wooly Mammoths has always been one of my favorite names and I do remember fondly of being a child and just saying the name, to get to see one of the these before my generation is all gone would be very awesome!
The true benefit of research like this is not to resurrect the mammoth, but to investigate the extinct genome and potential applications to similar extant species. As the last paragraph of the article says, isolated gene sequences could "possibly extend the geographical range of an existing endangered species northward to areas at much lower risk of conflict with humans."
As always, popular science loves their sensationalist article titles. There is a big difference between splicing in a couple of mammoth genes into a modern elephant and "brining back the wooly mammoth".
I thought it was a relatively restrained title. They did say, "edge closer" and not, "Mammoths resurrected from the dead! Are they coming for you next?!" ;)
In my head all I can see is Jurassic Park. This things going to come back with fire breath, bullet proof skin and a hunger for meat.
Seriously, it's a cool idea and a really neat concept they want to try, I just don't see the benefit of this, why do we want this technology? What good will this do for mankind? All I can think of is this animal would return to a world that can't accommodate it.