Scientists Say They Could Bring Back Woolly Mammoths Within Two Years

[Elixir]

Scientists Say They Could Bring Back Woolly Mammoths Within Two Years


... but can they save the elephants?

Ahead of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston this week, Professor George Church of Harvard University spoke about the progress his team has made over two years of trying to recreate the genetic blueprint of the long-extinct woolly mammoth. According to Church, a world-renowned geneticist, his team believes it can create a mammoth-elephant hybrid, with many of the recognizable woolly mammoth features, in embryo form within two years.

Since 2015, Church and his fellow scientists have been working to isolate the mammoth genes and splice them into the DNA of an Asian elephant, the closest living relative to the woolly mammoth. To do this, they are using a gene-editing technique known as CRISPR/Cas9, which Church helped develop.

There are effects contemplated in the article such as:

Reintroducing woolly mammoths, the scientists believe, would help slow the thawing of permafrost in this way. “They keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in,” Church explained. “In the summer they knock down trees and help the grass grow.”

Of course there will be unintended consequences as well. I feel pretty ambivalent about it - especially as a means to combat global warming...

 

[thebeave]

Scientists Say They Could Bring Back Woolly Mammoths Within Two Years


... but can they save the elephants?



There are effects contemplated in the article such as:

Reintroducing woolly mammoths, the scientists believe, would help slow the thawing of permafrost in this way. “They keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in,” Church explained. “In the summer they knock down trees and help the grass grow.”

Of course there will be unintended consequences as well. I feel pretty ambivalent about it - especially as a means to combat global warming...

Eh, I wouldn't be too concerned. They'll all be sterile from what I understand.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I just want to see the look on the face of the first polar bear to see one...

 

[Malintent]

I just want to see the look on the face of the first polar bear to see one...

 

[Speakpigeon]

Of course there will be unintended consequences as well. I feel pretty ambivalent about it - especially as a means to combat global warming...

Eh, I wouldn't be too concerned. They'll all be sterile from what I understand.

The next thing we know there's a swarm of mammoths coming your way and we'll go "How could that ever happen!!!"
EB

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Eh, I wouldn't be too concerned. They'll all be sterile from what I understand.

Life will find a way, dude.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Eh, I wouldn't be too concerned. They'll all be sterile from what I understand.

If mammoths have been clever enough to get scientists to bring them back from extinction I'm sure they'll figure out how to switch on reproduction.
EB

 

[PyramidHead]

There are effects contemplated in the article such as:

Reintroducing woolly mammoths, the scientists believe, would help slow the thawing of permafrost in this way. “They keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in,” Church explained. “In the summer they knock down trees and help the grass grow.”

What a strange way to go about slowing the thawing of permafrost. I can think of much more efficient means of punching through snow and knocking down trees than resurrecting an extinct species of animal.

 

[fast]

Scrat will be so happy

 

[Speakpigeon]

There are effects contemplated in the article such as:

What a strange way to go about slowing the thawing of permafrost. I can think of much more efficient means of punching through snow and knocking down trees than resurrecting an extinct species of animal.

And wouldn't large herds of big woolly mammoths produce vast quantities of greenhouse gas?
EB

 

[fromderinside]

And wouldn't large herds of big woolly mammoths produce vast quantities of greenhouse gas?
EB

Nope. Their bacterial substrates would.

 

[CJW]

Slingshot around the sun? Just a head's up - once back in the ice age, time is no longer a constant, so they'll have to use their best guess to arrive back at present day earth.

 

[Speakpigeon]

And wouldn't large herds of big woolly mammoths produce vast quantities of greenhouse gas?
EB

Nope. Their bacterial substrates would.

Lesson: A bacterial substrate is what biologists use in petri dishes and such, i.e. mammoths would definitely not have any bacterial substrates unless they be biologists themselves. But they would definitely have bacterial colonies or bacterial flora inside their guts, like you and me.

And you would have to say that countries don't produce greenhouse gases at all, it's their factories, or even better their workers. So, tax the workers.
EB