will the mammoths come to live again?

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bicicleur 2

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the article is in Dutch :

http://www.knack.be/nieuws/wetensch...facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=knack

so, I'll tell in short what it is about

the woolly mammoth differs from the asian elephant by only 14 genes
in fact the mammoth was an elephant that was adapted to cold : the woolly fur, more fat under the skin, smaller ears, ...
scientists have been able to reconstruct these 14 genes
now they have alive elephant cells with mammoth DNA in it
they could clone a mammoth, but there are ethical objections : the female asian elephant would have to be 22 months pregnant, and it is not sure that the mammoth she'll give birth to will survive
this whole project could also produce medical progress for humans

well, here is the article in English, so you can read it yourself :

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Science/article1534517.ece
 
No. Extinct animals shouldn't come to life again. Allowing one, even a cute one, will open a Pandora box. Where are we going to stop, on T-rex or Pterodactyl?
 
LeBrok said:
No. Extinct animals shouldn't come to life again. Allowing one, even a cute one, will open a Pandora box. Where are we going to stop, on T-rex or Pterodactyl?
Click to expand...

That would give new meaning to the term "invasive species". Imagine what would happen if some mad scientist re-created T-rex and let a large enough breeding population loose in a wilderness area to give them time to start reproducing. By the time they started snacking on humans they'd probably be spread out enough that it would be hard to track them all down and get rid of them.
 
Aberdeen said:
That would give new meaning to the term "invasive species". Imagine what would happen if some mad scientist re-created T-rex and let a large enough breeding population loose in a wilderness area to give them time to start reproducing. By the time they started snacking on humans they'd probably be spread out enough that it would be hard to track them all down and get rid of them.
Click to expand...

You mean like this?:grin:

 
Just in a clonation like Jurassic Park
 
LeBrok said:
No. Extinct animals shouldn't come to life again. Allowing one, even a cute one, will open a Pandora box. Where are we going to stop, on T-rex or Pterodactyl?
Click to expand...
there is a big difference between reviving a cold-adapted elephant and recreating T-rex
you are very principal and i resent that, it is 100 % wrong
the fact that there are allready 7 billion humans on this planet - and going toward 9 billion in a few decades - scares me much more than the prospect of a few cloned mammoths roaming the Siberian or Alaskan tundra
indeed we should weigh the pros and cons of new technologies, but we will need new technologies if we want humanity to survive on our planet in the numbers that are still growing
 
If they ever come back to life one day, Im sure it will be a tourist magnet and good money will be made. The like hood is that they would be 'tamed' (like animals in zoos) and there will be a handfull of them. They will never be able to survive in wilderness. As bicecleur said the huge global population is threatening the few wild areas left on the globe, that are taken up with other (struggling) species anyway.
 
LeBrok said:
No. Extinct animals shouldn't come to life again. Allowing one, even a cute one, will open a Pandora box. Where are we going to stop, on T-rex or Pterodactyl?
Click to expand...

>not wanting to visit Jurassic Park
 
bicicleur said:
the article is in Dutch :

http://www.knack.be/nieuws/wetensch...facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=knack

so, I'll tell in short what it is about

the woolly mammoth differs from the asian elephant by only 14 genes
in fact the mammoth was an elephant that was adapted to cold : the woolly fur, more fat under the skin, smaller ears, ...
scientists have been able to reconstruct these 14 genes
now they have alive elephant cells with mammoth DNA in it
they could clone a mammoth, but there are ethical objections : the female asian elephant would have to be 22 months pregnant, and it is not sure that the mammoth she'll give birth to will survive
this whole project could also produce medical progress for humans

well, here is the article in English, so you can read it yourself :

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Science/article1534517.ece
Click to expand...
There is not much information on the Sunday Times link, bicicleur. Why exactly do they want to try this? What medical progress do they say it may have regarding humans?
 
bicicleur said:
there is a big difference between reviving a cold-adapted elephant and recreating T-rex
you are very principal and i resent that, it is 100 % wrong
the fact that there are allready 7 billion humans on this planet - and going toward 9 billion in a few decades - scares me much more than the prospect of a few cloned mammoths roaming the Siberian or Alaskan tundra
Click to expand...
It is more about simplicity of law, than my strict philosophical principals of life and death. Forbidding all makes the law much easier to obey, than debate endlessly for centuries in mass-media and courts of law who is allowed to revive animals and what species. They are gone, we just need to keep the status quo. They are not needed for humans to be happy, neither mother nature cares about life either for Earth to exist.
For some entertainment people will engineer some exotic pets, who won't be able to procreate on their own, for environmental protection.


indeed we should weigh the pros and cons of new technologies, but we will need new technologies if we want humanity to survive on our planet in the numbers that are still growing
Click to expand...
Sure, but the new technology doesn't need to revive the extinct species to deal with food production for humans. Increasing CO2 level 2-3 times will make plants grow 50% faster and bigger. Like in green houses. Could be enough to feed extra 3-4 billion people.
 
hope said:
There is not much information on the Sunday Times link, bicicleur. Why exactly do they want to try this? What medical progress do they say it may have regarding humans?
Click to expand...

There are no details in the Dutch article either.
But there is another link :
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/10/behold-the-mammoth-maybe/
I think we'll hear more about the technology in the near future :
While health and medical goals are driving down the price of genome analysis and fostering the development of new technology, some of the most far-reaching applications — like resurrecting the mammoth and other extinct creatures — lie outside human health.
 
LeBrok said:
It is more about simplicity of law, than my strict philosophical principals of life and death. Forbidding all makes the law much easier to obey, than debate endlessly for centuries in mass-media and courts of law who is allowed to revive animals and what species. They are gone, we just need to keep the status quo. They are not needed for humans to be happy, neither mother nature cares about life either for Earth to exist.
For some entertainment people will engineer some exotic pets, who won't be able to procreate on their own, for environmental protection.


Sure, but the new technology doesn't need to revive the extinct species to deal with food production for humans. Increasing CO2 level 2-3 times will make plants grow 50% faster and bigger. Like in green houses. Could be enough to feed extra 3-4 billion people.
Click to expand...

I agree the revival of the has probably little use.
But what about this one then :
Another potential non-medical use involves using genetic engineering to manage existing species, such as building malaria resistance into mosquitoes to minimize the human suffering the disease causes, or “de-evolving” the herbicide resistance weeds develop over time to restore a herbicide’s effectiveness.
would you like to see DNA-modified mosquitos buzzing around?
they would be much more difficult to control than a small herd of mammoths
the same applies to modified weeds : how will you control that?
see link :
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/10/behold-the-mammoth-maybe/

there are usefull aplications possible, but there are also risks to be assessed
unless you want to a priori ban the technology completely, a simple law won't do
 
bicicleur said:
There are no details in the Dutch article either.
But there is another link :
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/10/behold-the-mammoth-maybe/
I think we'll hear more about the technology in the near future :
While health and medical goals are driving down the price of genome analysis and fostering the development of new technology, some of the most far-reaching applications — like resurrecting the mammoth and other extinct creatures — lie outside human health.
Click to expand...
I do applaud that we may have the technology to this, that alone is fantastic. Should we do it and is there truly an honest to goodness reason to do it, is another question. Personally, my answer is the same as when Mr. Church was speaking of cloning a neanderthal...No.
I watched a great programme on channel 4 a little while back, Mammoth Autopsy, I think it was. There is no denying quite a few want this cloning to happen so I know it is not Church alone in on this, it stretches wide from what I see. I mention Church only because one of your links did. There is a real desire to have this happen... I don`t think the reasons are there for it to be so.
As for any benefit to eco. argument,I agree with LeBrok, we should be looking to other ways to caretake our environment without trying to clone animals, made extinct by the environment, to do that job.
 
bicicleur said:
I agree the revival of the has probably little use.
But what about this one then :
Another potential non-medical use involves using genetic engineering to manage existing species, such as building malaria resistance into mosquitoes to minimize the human suffering the disease causes, or “de-evolving” the herbicide resistance weeds develop over time to restore a herbicide’s effectiveness.
would you like to see DNA-modified mosquitos buzzing around?
they would be much more difficult to control than a small herd of mammoths
the same applies to modified weeds : how will you control that?
see link :
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/10/behold-the-mammoth-maybe/

there are usefull aplications possible, but there are also risks to be assessed
unless you want to a priori ban the technology completely, a simple law won't do
Click to expand...
I don't have a problem when genetically modified new agricultural plants come as infertile varieties. I won't have a problem, if new pets will come as such, or even infertile mammoth kept in a Zoo. Other than that we need to be extremely careful not to destroy natural balance. We see this problem every time there is an invasive specie from other continent making havoc among local fauna and flora. I'm not at easy yet with genetically modified mosquitoes or even wheat crops which are released, purposely or not, into the wiled. This should be done with great caution and regulatory overseeing, on par with introduction of new medical drugs. I'm sure with time will be able to fix nature, in some degree, for betterment of human kind. For now we have to be extremely careful, we don't have full understanding of consequences yet. Whatever we release can come back and bite us.

Having said that, there is an animal that I would make using genetic engineering. I would create a small bird with huge appetite for wasps. Wasps don't have natural predators, and are everywhere in my city during our short summer. Probably there is not one house without wasp nest or two somewhere. It is a plague, and no biological balance. A kind of small bird, immune to wasp venom, would keep them in check.
If not, someone please send some good old DDT. ;)
 
LeBrok said:
I don't have a problem when genetically modified new agricultural plants come as infertile varieties. I won't have a problem, if new pets will come as such, or even infertile mammoth kept in a Zoo. Other than that we need to be extremely careful not to destroy natural balance. We see this problem every time there is an invasive specie from other continent making havoc among local fauna and flora. I'm not at easy yet with genetically modified mosquitoes or even wheat crops which are released, purposely or not, into the wiled. This should be done with great caution and regulatory overseeing, on par with introduction of new medical drugs. I'm sure with time will be able to fix nature, in some degree, for betterment of human kind. For now we have to be extremely careful, we don't have full understanding of consequences yet. Whatever we release can come back and bite us.

Having said that, there is an animal that I would make using genetic engineering. I would create a small bird with huge appetite for wasps. Wasps don't have natural predators, and are everywhere in my city during our short summer. Probably there is not one house without wasp nest or two somewhere. It is a plague, and no biological balance. A kind of small bird, immune to wasp venom, would keep them in check.
If not, someone please send some good old DDT. ;)
Click to expand...

I once heard a rumour that there used to be a kind of bird that fed exclusively on wasps. Unfortunately, it was killed off by DDT.
 
LeBrok said:
No. Extinct animals shouldn't come to life again. Allowing one, even a cute one, will open a Pandora box. Where are we going to stop, on T-rex or Pterodactyl?
Click to expand...
Exactly. There's a reason if they're extinct. Natural selection, or whatever. Real scientists should know the rules of evolution and biology, and stop this bullshit immediately. I don't like this 'Prometheus-like' trend of humanity... When we fall, we'll fall from a very great height.
 
Aberdeen said:
I once heard a rumour that there used to be a kind of bird that fed exclusively on wasps. Unfortunately, it was killed off by DDT.
Click to expand...

By the same token swallows should be gone too, because we killed flies and mosquitoes with DDT. Supposedly there are few birds and animals that eat them occasionally, but nobody really loves to eat them, makes them the main staple of diet.
I'm guessing that DDT is behind eradicating almost all bed bugs in 60s. Unfortunately not all of them and they're coming back to enjoy our blood again.
 
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