I saw on the news today an item concerning the possible resurrection of the mammoth. Fortunately, I was able to find the story online at The New York Times. Apparently, they found that the hair of the mammoth was a purer source than bone of the DNA, excluding bacteria usually found from other samples such as bone. The article states that it has been calculated that a mammoth’s genes differ from a modern African elephant at around 400,000 sites. What made the breakthrough possible was a newer technology of DNA decoding machines which looks like it is able to do the genetic analysis by using the small fragments usually found as starting points. I would also strongly suspect that the software, possibly like that developed at Marth Labs also played a role. So it looks like essentially the process would be to modify the genome of an elephant’s cell, make an embryo, and let an elephant carry it. See the article for further details, and any biologists reading this, please feel free to correct any misunderstanding I have. Also mentioned is that there is some skepticism this could work.
It would take only $10 million to maybe bring back a mammoth. That’s just pocket change for Bill Gates, and a drop in the bucket compared to the Iraq quagmire. The question is, should we do it? Should we bring back extinct species? There’s certainly room for discussion, but I for one, would love to see it.
Not to mention, we can finally get back to building pyramids again.
Construction at Pleistocene Park
