Clone Them Clone Them!!
The Times - Mammoth DNA extracted from hair reveals ancient secrets
Ten woolly mammoths that died up to 50,000 years ago have had their DNA sequenced using a technique that could revolutionise genetic testing of extinct creatures.
DNA sequences from mammoth remains were so detailed that they are expected to cast light on why the animals became extinct. Using a new technique for extracting DNA, researchers were able to carry out the analysis with strands of hair instead of fragments of bone.
The woolly mammoth hair had been so well preserved that it provided the most accurate DNA sequencing of the extinct animals yet achieved. One of the animals used in the study dated back 50,000 years and its hairs allowed scientists to obtain the oldest complete sequence of mitochondrial DNA.
They’re always trying to clone kittens and humans. Why not dodos and woolly mammoths?
Mammoths roamed the landscape for about six million years and their disappearance about 10,000 years ago – with a handful of dwarf mammoths surviving on remote Siberian islands until little more than 2,000 years ago – has remained a mystery.
Dwarf mammoths?!?! Okay. [ninme takes a deep breath] I was just thinking that I should say that they should fill in any genetic gaps with a pygmy hippo, and then wondered if I should say that. I decided probably not. But see?! Clone them! Then release them as pets! Wonderful, exotic, elaborately trunked pets!
September 28th, 2007 at 6:33 am
The “filling the genetic gaps” with DNA from another animal sounds quite Jurassic Park-y; it also reminds me of a verse from “Skullcrusher Mountain” by my favorite geek troubadour:
I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you But I get the feeling that you don’t like it What’s with all the screaming? You like monkeys, you like ponies Maybe you don’t like monsters so much Maybe I used too many monkeys Isn’t it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?
September 28th, 2007 at 9:27 am
…the hell music do you listen to?
Nuts they’re related to whales and pigs, but not elephants. I must have been thinking those other things… Sea cows. Fine, I looked back into the mysts of my memory of those little evolutionary family tree things and I confused hippos with sea cows. Are there dwarf sea cows?!
September 28th, 2007 at 10:09 am
I listen to Jonathan Coulton — and you should too. On this page, check out “Code Monkey”, “Re: Your Brains”, “The Future Soon”, and “Mandelbrot Set”, and let me know if you don’t absolutely love them.