Japanese are thinkng of cloning...Wooly Mammoths?
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After a six-year search Japanese scientists are preparing to clone prehistoric woolly mammoths from frozen DNA samples found in Siberia.
Inspired by Dolly the sheep - cloned from the cell of an adult ewe in Scotland in 1996 - and the film Jurassic Park, researchers from Kagoshima and Kinki universities and the Gifu Science and Technology Centre began the search in 1997 for sperm or tissue from mammoths preserved in the tundra.
The plan was to find a frozen male, recover samples of its sperm, inseminate a modern elephant and create a mammoth-elephant hybrid. No sperm was ever found. Several mammoths, preserved in the permafrost, have been identified in Siberia but the DNA was degraded.
In the past five years, researchers all around the world have kept alive the dream that they might be able to restore extinct species by cloning. The Australian Museum in Sydney announced a plan to restore the Tasmanian tiger, which vanished more than 60 years ago, by taking DNA from pickled puppies in a Victorian biological collection. China announced a project to clone the giant panda, because captive breeding has proved so difficult. US researchers managed to clone the gaur, a threatened species of Indian bison, three years ago but the calf died shortly after it was born to a cow.
The Japanese scientists collected samples of bone marrow, muscle and skin from mammoth remains found in Siberia last August. Yesterday, after a year fighting Russian bureaucracy, the samples arrived.
The researchers face a series of new hurdles. First, they have to confirm the samples are from mammoths, then see if they can isolate a full set of chromosomes. Then they would have to fuse an egg from a living relative - an elephant - with DNA from an extinct creature. Then there would be the challenge of implanting the embryo into the womb of a host mother.
If they overcame all these challenges, they would then be faced with the biggest of all: what to do with a lonely ice age mammal in a rapidly warming world. -
are they?
tamade.. about 2 years ago, watch the National Geographic "watch with the world" thing, about raising the mammoth, kena bluff!
all they did was to find some people in Siberia, then find some frozen mammoth and dig up the mammoth, put the whole damned thing into a giant fridge... we didn't even get to see it! it was still frozen in one giant block which they could not thaw out yet...
2 whole hours wasted! -
WahahahaOriginally posted by the Bear:are they?
tamade.. about 2 years ago, watch the National Geographic "watch with the world" thing, about raising the mammoth, kena bluff!
all they did was to find some people in Siberia, then find some frozen mammoth and dig up the mammoth, put the whole damned thing into a giant fridge... we didn't even get to see it! it was still frozen in one giant block which they could not thaw out yet...
2 whole hours wasted!
kena cheated... -
hmm..guess tt they might wanna to clone dodo bird..hmm..or even..dinosaurs..?! oh man..wat's the world becoming to..? hmm..i dun mind the dodo bird..but if dinosaurs..aiyo..nonono..
kekeke..scary sia..
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haha, then we got Jurassic Park liao.... lol... its impossible to find a male sperm of a dinosaur i think. Cloning wooly mammoth would be a big feat already. Its not a pure wooly mammoth breed somemoreOriginally posted by Angel^_^:hmm..guess tt they might wanna to clone dodo bird..hmm..or even..dinosaurs..?! oh man..wat's the world becoming to..? hmm..i dun mind the dodo bird..but if dinosaurs..aiyo..nonono..
kekeke..scary sia.. -
yah hor..oh well..they really good in cloning huh? erm..are u the real saintboy..? or cloned..? kekeke.kidding..~Originally posted by saintboy:haha, then we got Jurassic Park liao.... lol... its impossible to find a male sperm of a dinosaur i think. Cloning wooly mammoth would be a big feat already. Its not a pure wooly mammoth breed somemore