Jurassic Park...Here we come!

shack

Michael Crichton (RIP) is one of my favorite authors. One of the things I like about his fiction was the amount of science and research he put into his writing. Even though it was fiction, I knew what he was writing about in Jurassic Park was plausable...and so it is.

Researchers aim to resurrect mammoth in five years

TOKYO (AFP) – 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 summer 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.

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 usable 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.

"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 percent 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 towards 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.

If they can do it with a mammoth...is a dinosaur far behind?

nooshinjohn

After it is successfully cloned, we will discover that mammoths were flesh eating monsters with a rabinous apetite for human flesh...

Our days are truly numbered...

exalted512

Thats really awesome. Too bad we'll all be dead in 2012 anyway.
-Cody

txcoastal1

Kinda cool but have you guys seen what Godzilla does to cities...never mind its Tokyo...go for it:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

Send the clones to N. Korea:eek:

dkg999

What is buried in the perma-frost should stay in the perma-frost :eek:

warren

exalted512 wrote: »

Thats really awesome. Too bad we'll all be dead in 2012 anyway.
-Cody

Why will we be dead?

ben62670

Warren do a google search on 2012. I am not paranoid, but the info from all kinds of different cultures presented way before we were communicating between cultures is pretty scary. From what I have seen we will not all die, but something big looks like it is going to happen. We will see. BTW Y2k didn't bother me in the least. False predictions have happened all through history.
Take care my friend.
Ben

bobman1235

warren wrote: »

Why will we be dead?

Because someone wanted to sell a book and movies, and everyone else is stupid.

amulford

If they can do it with a mammoth...is a dinosaur far behind?

I don't think so. The problem lies in finding a viable DNA sample. It's hard enough to find a sample in a frozen specimen. It is still possible, though, as there is actual tissue to work with.

Fossilization is a whole other story. While the mosquito idea sounds like something, it won't ever actually work. The proteins are destroyed, making it impossible to extract the chains.

One thing I saw, which actually worked, was artificial DNA replication. That has promise, but we are kind of at an impasse. We would need to have the actual sequences to be able to reconstruct the chains.

I wish it would work, though. It would be SO effin cool to see that...

nooshinjohn

This is as close as mankind needs to get to a dinosaur...

Demiurge

ben62670 wrote: »

Warren do a google search on 2012. I am not paranoid...

If you believe that there's going to be some world altering event in 2012, you may not be paranoid, but you are insane. You were given the gift of a brain, please don't let it go to waste. Of course, anything newsworthy that happens in 2012 will be claimed to be a result of some ridiculous ancient prediction.

I hope people capitalize on all of the idiocy like they did in the year 2000. A fool and his money are soon parted

shack

The theory that Juarssic Park is based on (dino DNA from mosquito blood trapped in amber) is very slim.

However, just like the mammoth there may be other sources for DNA...ie:

The Hunt for Dinosaur Flesh and DNA

July 27th, 2007, By Stefan Anitei

The last dinosaur died 65 million years ago. So, after so much time, all you expect to find are mineralized fossils of them, in other words just bones and teeth, as flesh rapidly rots.

So you can imagine the surprise of the paleontologists when they found soft tissue in a 70 million-year-old fossil of Tyrannosaurus rex. It was a first and this started the debate whether the dinosaur DNA could be retrieved just like in the "Jurassic Park" story or not.

Paleontologists are still amazed to encounter material that seems to be dinosaur cartilage, blood vessels, blood cells and bone cells, in many different dinosaur fossils.

"It's very scary, I guess, to find this stuff so widely distributed when nobody has ever seen it before," said North Carolina State University's Mary Schweitzer, a pioneer in the field.

Ray Rogers and Kristi Curry Rogers, a husband-and-wife, geologist-and-paleontologist team at Macalester College, sent to Schweitzer fossils they had found in Madagascar.

70 million years ago, a killing drought was followed by torrential rainfall and waves of mud and wet sand covered up dead and dying dinosaurs.

"You can imagine it's like a milkshake rolling down the mountain," said Kristi Rogers.

Such rapid-preserved fossils can offer many clues.

"What Mary found was exactly the same stuff that she found in the T. rex," said Rogers, whose work focuses on long-necked dinos known as titanosaurs.

A spectacular finding was a hadrosaur specimen discovered by Schweitzer's team in 2006 in Montana's Judith River Formation.

"What we're finding is absolutely incredible, amazing preservation. It's the 'freshest,' if you will, dinosaur bone that has ever had this analysis conducted on it." said Schweitzer.

"The fossil was excavated specifically for the purposes of demineralizing and analyzing its insides. Once a fossil's interior is exposed to the air, it degrades very quickly. In fact, the T. rex fossil that started it all is becoming less and less useful for soft-tissue research with the passage of time," she said.

Dinosaurs' hot spots will explain many biochemical mysteries of the dinosaurs.

"We're getting specimens that have been collected specifically to do these kinds of tests, and that has never happened before," she said.

In 2006, a team obtained the first chemical results for T. rex collagen, a skin protein, that revealed that birds are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs. That was the start of paleobiochemistry. As far as recovering DNA dinosaur is concerned, researchers say they are not prepared to deal with it, even if fragments of dinosaur DNA could be available in the future.

"You'd need a Class 3 or Class 4 or Class 5 lab, which is the same lab you'd be working with for hantavirus or Ebola," she said .

It may not happen in my lifetime...but who knows? Never say never.

Ron-P

ben62670 wrote: »

Warren do a google search on 2012. I am not paranoid, but the info from all kinds of different cultures presented way before we were communicating between cultures is pretty scary. From what I have seen we will not all die, but something big looks like it is going to happen. We will see. BTW Y2k didn't bother me in the least. False predictions have happened all through history.
Take care my friend.
Ben

False predictions, you mean, just like the 2012 one?

tonyb

Imagine 50 million years from now, the planet will still be here, we won't. The next civilization will dig one of us up in the frozen tundra and want to recreate one of us. With our luck, it will be Troy.

I just don't see the purpose in trying to bring back extinct animals, big ones at that. Let nature take it's coarse. It's not nice to fool with mother nature as they say. Just because you can do something,doesn't mean you should. I see it as just a motive fueled by money. Imagine what people would pay to see a T-rex. Still, how about we put our efforts into preservation, like OUR'S...we need to think along the lines of the human race, not 50 million year old animals.

DMara

Ron-P wrote: »

False predictions, you mean, just like the 2012 one?

No, no, my friend, it won't be a false prediction, because right after 12/21/2012 those guys will tell you to wait for another 50-100 years:
:biggrin: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/mayan-calendars-2012-doomsday-prophecy-wrong/story?id=11926347 :biggrin:

That means there are going to be more movies and books related to this "prophecy". And, of course, you and I won't be alive to argue that it's false

nooshinjohn

That's alright guys... the Cylons already live anong us, and our extermination is at hand. The Borg will quickly assimilate whomever is left.

bobman1235

nooshinjohn wrote: »

That's alright guys... the Cylons already live anong us, and our extermination is at hand. The Borg will quickly assimilate whomever is left.

YOu may even be one and not know it. TO THE AIRLOCK!

jflail2

I, for one, welcome our robot overlords...

renowilliams

dkg999 wrote: »

What is buried in the perma-frost should stay in the perma-frost :eek:

+1 on this statement. I read recently that scientists were researching the plauge that wiped out millions of people worldwide in 1918. They dug up someone that had died from it,from the permafrost, to study it. Even with todays advances in science,they are still unable to find a cure for it.


Leave that all alone is what I say. Every time someone tries to play god,they find out they are definatly not god.

shack

renowilliams wrote:

Leave that all alone is what I say. Every time someone tries to play god,they find out they are definatly not god.

Easy enough to say...but almost every medical advance we know today could come under the "playing God" heading.

ben62670

Demiurge wrote: »

If you believe that there's going to be some world altering event in 2012, you may not be paranoid, but you are insane. You were given the gift of a brain, please don't let it go to waste. Of course, anything newsworthy that happens in 2012 will be claimed to be a result of some ridiculous ancient prediction.

I hope people capitalize on all of the idiocy like they did in the year 2000. A fool and his money are soon parted

Ha Ha. Nostradamus predicted a lot of things fairly accurately. The problem is that people twisted things to the extreme. I believe something big will happen in 2012. Will it be the end of mankind. No. One of the last predictions was the two silver birds that attached the "new city" (that was New York's World Trade Center) which started a great war. To him seeing the future and what bombs could do must have looked like world war III. I will not be underground with the moles digging holes, but I will post that my agreeing with the predictions were justified.
Enjoy
Ben

cokewithvanilla

What amazes me is that we have starvation all over the world and we waste the time/effort/money to try to produce a giant extinct animal that requires a lot of food.

Demiurge

I believe something big will happen in 2012. Will it be the end of mankind. No.

How ambiguous.

bobman1235

ben62670 wrote: »

One of the last predictions was the two silver birds that attached the "new city" (that was New York's World Trade Center) which started a great war.

Blatantly false.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/nostradamus.asp

Speak poetically and vaguely enough and any idiot will think you're a prophet eventually.

BlueFox

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

What amazes me is that we have starvation all over the world and we waste the time/effort/money to try to produce a giant extinct animal that requires a lot of food.

Obviously, you have never had Mammoth burgers, with cheese.

nooshinjohn

BlueFox wrote: »

Obviously, you have never had Mammoth burgers, with cheese.

YABBA-DABBA-DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!:biggrin:

Face

Ron-P wrote: »

False predictions, you mean, just like the 2012 one?

Don't forget Y2K.

ben62670

I slept through Y2K. *big yawn*

warren

ben62670 wrote: »

Warren do a google search on 2012. I am not paranoid, but the info from all kinds of different cultures presented way before we were communicating between cultures is pretty scary. From what I have seen we will not all die, but something big looks like it is going to happen. We will see. BTW Y2k didn't bother me in the least. False predictions have happened all through history.
Take care my friend.
Ben

I sent you a email Ben.

Earthy

Being a big science geek, I think it's a cool idea. The dream of kids around the world to walk among ancient beasts.

Being a fear monger would just mean time to run up the credit cards and buy that dream system, since the world will likely end soon anyway.

Win Win!

Rivrrat

ben62670 wrote: »

I slept through Y2K. *big yawn*

I drank through it, skeptically waiting for the big event.