Experts aim to resurrect mammoth

Tokyo - Japanese researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years time.

The researchers will try to revive the species by obtaining tissue this year from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian research laboratory, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.

"Preparations to realise this goal have been made," Akira Iritani, leader of the team and a professor emeritus of Kyoto University, told the mass-circulation daily.

Under the plan, the nuclei of mammoth cells will be inserted into an elephant's egg cell from which the nuclei have been removed, to create an embryo containing mammoth genes, the report said.

The embryo will then be inserted into an elephant's uterus in the hope that the animal will eventually give birth to a baby mammoth.

Modern relative

The elephant is the closest modern relative of the mammoth, a huge woolly mammal believed to have died out with the last Ice Age.

Some mammoth remains still retain useable tissue samples, making it possible to recover cells for cloning, unlike dinosaurs, which disappeared around 65 million years ago and whose remains exist only as fossils

Researchers hope to achieve their aim within five to six years, the Yomiuri said.

The team, which has invited a Russian mammoth researcher and two US elephant experts to join the project, has established a technique to extract DNA from frozen cells, previously an obstacle to cloning attempts because of the damage cells sustained in the freezing process.

Another Japanese researcher, Teruhiko Wakayama of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, succeeded in 2008 in cloning a mouse from the cells of another that had been kept in temperatures similar to frozen ground for 16 years.

The scientists extracted a cell nucleus from an organ of a dead mouse and planted it into the egg of another mouse which was alive, leading to the birth of the cloned mouse.

Based on Wakayama's techniques, Iritani's team devised a method to extract the nuclei of mammoth eggs without damaging them. But a successful cloning will also pose challenges for the team, Iritani warned.

Extinct

"If a cloned embryo can be created, we need to discuss, before transplanting it into the womb, how to breed (the mammoth) and whether to display it to the public," Iritani said.

"After the mammoth is born, we will examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors."

More than 80% of all mammoth finds have been dug up in the permafrost of the vast Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia.

Exactly why a majority of the huge creatures that once strode in large herds across Eurasia and North America died out toward the end of the last Ice Age has generated fiery debate.

Some experts hold that mammoths were hunted to extinction by the species that was to become the planet's dominant predator - humans.

Others argue that climate change was more to blame, leaving a species adapted for frozen climes ill-equipped to cope with a warming world.

- AFP

I'll take two, and while they're at it, I'll take a T-Rex please

Can you imagine the calibre arguments that will now ensue....

quote:

Originally posted by kayaker:
Can you imagine the calibre arguments that will now ensue....

SSR

It is likely to happen. Large animals (cattle & horses) have been being cloned for a while now. We personally foaled out 5 viable cloned stallions and 1 mare here at Performance Equine Associates.

I know of one bull that was cloned from frozen tissue already.

Get ready for a mammath...likely to happen!

I have a very nice mammoth cow tusk. I has a very nice curve to it and is over 6 feet long.
i doubt i'll live long enough to hunt them, so this will have to do.

Imagine all the new .gov forms to be created, agencies to be funded, and folks to be hired so the US can delist the mammoth from 'extinct' to 'endangered'.

Anyone know what happened in the attempt to recreate South Africa's extinct quagga? There was a lot of publicity at first, then nothing for the past couple of years.

Bill Quimby

Jurassic Park here we come. I no longer feel overgunned with my 500 Jeffery ...



Chuck

Saber toothed Tiger? Short faced bear; Dire wolf? Irish Elk?

Oooeee!!! Think of the ivory quality those guys will carry, if they succeed in cloning them!


Way back then they also had Rhino that were alot bigger than the puney ones we got now, I read some where that one kind stood 20' tall. They had elk with up to 12' antler spread.


Who said the .577NE and .600 were too much gun?


But as for "millions of years ago"... sounds nice, and it is government funded, but that is nothing but H-O-G-W-A-S-H = hogwash. The earth ain't more than 10,000 years (at most) old itself.


I hope they succeed in this thing though, "Ice Age Park"... if they could clone enough of these critters make such a place, there would finaly be some truely PRACTICAL use for the .577NE, .600, and bigger...

quote:

Originally posted by eezridr:
Saber toothed Tiger? Short faced bear; Dire wolf? Irish Elk?

Gotta find cells with a viable nucleus...at least...with today's technology.

damn, i guess global warming really started after the last Ice Age. Al Gore was right- just a "little" off with his dates. now if they can just clone a mastodon, we can see some REAL ivory

quote:

Originally posted by Nemo .450:
But as for "millions of years ago"... sounds nice, and it is government funded, but that is nothing but H-O-G-W-A-S-H = hogwash. The earth ain't more than 10,000 years (at most) old itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

Incidentally, the Irish "elk" is believed to have been an ancestor of today's fallow deer.

Bill Quimby

Whatg's the SCI minimum?

quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

Bill Quimby

According to that link, the earth is 4.54 Billion years old.

I guess I'm not older than dirt after all.

Seems to me there was some kind of "wooly rhino" as well. My memory isnt what it once was so maybe someone can help me out here. Trouble is that the rate things are going there will not be a live one left to use as a surrogate if things dont change.

quote:

Originally posted by kayaker:
Can you imagine the calibre arguments that will now ensue....

Do you think you could take one with a 45-70.... with solids of course!!!

quote:

Originally posted by kayaker:
Can you imagine the calibre arguments that will now ensue....

Can you imagine the trophy fee!!

We are sick individuals ...



Chuck

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

Originally posted by eezridr:
Saber toothed Tiger? Short faced bear; Dire wolf? Irish Elk?

Gotta find cells with a viable nucleus...at least...with today's technology.

It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature

Megatherium americanum

Canned Mammoths...........now were talking, wonder how long they have to be released for before they can be ' hunted'

quote:

Originally posted by buffybr:

quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

Bill Quimby

According to that link, the earth is 4.54 Billion years old.

I guess I'm not older than dirt after all.

Here I am still believing in Adam and Eve.

Does this mean that the Easter Bunny may also be a fake.

The North Slope is still prime habitat for them (far as I know). Turn em loose and give us the month of August to hunt. Several villages up here with unemployment problems, we could prolly hire plenty of packers. Best part about it would be to show the wife that I really did NEED that 470 Mbogo I just built.
But we should probably let sleeping dogs lay.
From Prudhoe, Nick

The Yukon and NWT will welcome them I think. Wonder how long before Tim Mervyn will have tags. I think the 8-bore just became the minimum calibre for North America.

quote:

I think the 8-bore just became the minimum calibre for North America.

Mmmmmm, that wouldn't help me with the Mrs. No way she's going to let me build an 8-bore when I haven't blooded the 470 yet. I vote .458 for min. cal.
-Nick

The 600 Overkill will be renamed the 600 Just Right.

quote:

The 600 Overkill will be renamed the 600 Just Right.

Good one. -Nick

I've wondered about this for years. I'm betting the Japanese team will succeed, but they'll need intact DNA from several different carcasses to create a stable breeding pool.

They went extinct for a reason folks. They aren't coming back as wild animals. They ran out of habitat a long, long time ago. If Alaska and the Yukon had good mamoth habitat, there would have been mamoths there in historical times. That means canned shooting only and I'll be the first to sign up!

Dean

Wait, Wait, Wait! Its been said everything on this world has been killed with a .22LR. Here's a new one! I'll be the first.
Anyone wanna take out life insurance on me?

Klizzie Yziellek - .375 H & H has done it for me, no need to change now. Hope they succeed.

Larry Sellers
SCI Life Member

What about some carniverous kangeroos?? Pity we dont have permafrost here in AU...

http://news.nationalgeographic...060725-kangaroo.html

quote:

Originally posted by martin pieters:
Canned Mammoths...........now were talking, wonder how long they have to be released for before they can be ' hunted'

I'll bet the first ones available for harvest will be on a South African fenced game farm.

465H&H

quote:

Originally posted by Nemo .450:

But as for "millions of years ago"... sounds nice, and it is government funded, but that is nothing but H-O-G-W-A-S-H = hogwash. The earth ain't more than 10,000 years (at most) old itself.

So someone is playing a real dirty trick on us with those dinosaur fossils, eh??

quote:

Originally posted by JBoutfishn:
It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature

Look around you. Look at the computer you use, the roads you drive on, and where your house is built.

We "fool" with "Mother" nature all the time. Heard of game management? Animal husbandry? The re-introduction to the wild of endangered species? Domesticated pets? Selective breeding? Zoos???

We have such and impact on our enviornment, that most everything humans do with animals is "fooling" with nature.

These japanese just need to find a big enough preserve, and thier research can be self sustaining if they can get the populations up to managable huntable numbers.

The trophy fees would be unreal - but there would be a waiting list of hunteres!!!

After they knock out the Mammoth, they need to start work on wooly rhinos and sabertooths!

[QUOTE]

But as for "millions of years ago"... sounds nice, and it is government funded, but that is nothing but H-O-G-W-A-S-H = hogwash. The earth ain't more than 10,000 years (at most) old itself.

QUOTE]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha, damn, just snorted coffee all over my keyboard...

quote:

Originally posted by Nemo .450:

But as for "millions of years ago"... sounds nice, and it is government funded, but that is nothing but H-O-G-W-A-S-H = hogwash. The earth ain't more than 10,000 years (at most) old itself.

You need to pay more attention in highschool my friend but what more can be expected from a 17 year old

Matt,

maybe they can clone a really nice sheep for you one you would shear with your friends