
Lyuba, a baby mammoth discovered in 2007 in Siberia. It is part of a special exhibit “Mammoths and Mastadons” at the Field Museum through September. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As an ecologist of ice age giants, I long ago came to terms with the fact that I will never look my study organisms in the eye.
I will never observe black-bear-sized beavers through binoculars in their natural habitats, build experimental exclosures to test the effects of mastodons on plants, or even observe a giant ground sloth in a zoo.
As a conservation paleoecologist, I study the natural experiments of the past—like climate change and extinction—to better understand the ecology of a warming, fragmented world. Admitedly, part of the appeal of the ice age past is the challenge of reconstructing long-disappeared landscapes from fragments like pollen, tiny fragments of charcoal, and bits of leaves preserved in lakes. In the absence of mammoths, for example, I rely instead on spores of fungi that once inhabited their dung.
De-extinction could change that. On Friday, a group of geneticists, conservationists, journalists, and others convened in Washington, D.C. to discuss resurrecting extinct species, including the woolly mammoth. De-extinction sounds like science fiction, but it’s rooted in very real conservation concerns. With the sequencing of the woolly mammoth genome complete and recent advancements in biotechnology, the question of whether to clone extinct species like mastodons, dodos, or the Shasta ground sloth is rapidly becoming more of a question of should, rather than how. The latter isn’t straightforward, and involves the integration of a number of cutting edge disciplines, but I’d like to focus on the former: should we clone woolly mammoths?
A growing problem I’ve had (and one which Brian Switek raises in a recent post at National Geographic) is that the de-extinction proposals are Big Ideas, but they they’re often shallow when it comes to ecology. Even the concept of “de-extinction” itself is misleading. Successfully cloning an animal is one thing; rescuing it from the black hole-like pull of extinction is another. Decades of conservation biology research has tried to determine the careful calculus of how many individuals and how much land are needed for a species to survive without major intervention, accounting for its needs for food, habitat, and other resources.
Mammoths have been extinct on continents for over ten thousand years (though dwarf versions survived into the time of the ancient Egyptians on isolated Arctic islands). Even so, the fossil record has yielded rich clues about ecology. All ethical considerations aside, from a conservation biology standpoint, what does it mean to be a mammoth?
The Latest Bing News on:
Cloning Woolly Mammoths
- Reviving extinct species: Can we? Should we?on March 30, 2023 at 8:33 am
Cloning is another option, growing a new embryo (within a ... Founded in 2021, the company first made headlines for its ambition to de-extinct the woolly mammoth within a few years. Most recently, it ...
- Mammoth meatball? This lab-grown meat uses the genetic sequence from the long-extinct animalon March 28, 2023 at 6:08 pm
The lab-grown cultured meat treat isn't available to eat, but the creators say its reveal is meant to fire up public debate about cultivated meat and the possibility of producing meat without killing ...
- Woolly Mammoth: The Autopsyon March 25, 2023 at 2:54 am
Can cloning bring mammoths back from extinction? This documentary follows a team of mammoth specialists and cloning scientists as they dissect the best-preserved mammoth ever found.
- Scientists want to clone an extinct bison unearthed from Siberian permafrost. Experts are skeptical.on March 23, 2023 at 10:10 am
Researchers in Russia recently dissected a mummified bison dating back to around 8,000 years ago. The remains are so well preserved that the team thinks the extinct animal could be cloned, but others ...
- Scientists bring woolly mammoth cells back to lifeon March 17, 2023 at 5:00 pm
The woolly mammoth is long gone ... No, we’re not talking about Jurassic Park-esque cloning — at least not yet — but a mammoth specimen discovered nearly a decade ago is bringing scientists ...
- Should we bring back the woolly mammoth? SXSW experts talk ethics behind de-extinctionon March 16, 2023 at 5:00 am
Bringing back long extinct animals to once again roam the Earth might sound like the newest Jurassic Park movie, but it’s very much a possible reality.
- Cloning advances: From sheep and dogs to… woolly mammoths and humans?on March 14, 2023 at 5:00 pm
including efforts to clone extinct woolly mammoths, using Asian elephants as surrogate mothers. But he reports human cloning would be extremely difficult – not to mention already illegal in some ...
- The last woolly mammoths in North America didn't starve -- they died of thirston January 28, 2023 at 5:48 pm
few have captured the imagination as thoroughly as the woolly mammoth. Scientists have researched the feasibility of cloning mammoths for decades, but knowing how and why they died out would tell ...
- How To Clone A Woolly Mammothon November 25, 2021 at 5:55 am
One lucky person has the chance to win an amazing 7 night half board holiday for two to Dubrovnik. Departing London Gatwick on 25th April 2023. Date not transferrable ...
- Woolly Mammothon September 13, 2021 at 10:56 am
The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius ... It has been proposed the species could be recreated through cloning, but this method is as yet infeasible because of the degraded state of the ...
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Cloning Woolly Mammoths
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The Latest Bing News on:
De-extinction
- Reviving extinct species: Can we? Should we?on March 30, 2023 at 8:33 am
De-extinction is the idea of bringing extinct species back to life. Advanced genetic engineering techniques are opening the door to doing just that, some scientists say. Efforts now underway to bring ...
- Historic Newspaper Articles Shine New Light On The Near Extinction Of Kākāpōon March 29, 2023 at 7:15 pm
These data were used to predict the kākāpō’slikely local extinction dates, which were between 1936 and ... “These animals would certainly have been the coup de grâce for this species if the birds hadn ...
- Historic newspaper articles shine new light on the near-extinction of kakapo - Landcare Reseachon March 29, 2023 at 6:51 pm
These data were used to predict the kÄ kÄ pÅ ’slikely local extinction dates, which were between 1936 ... "These animals would certainly have been the coup de grâce for this species if the birds ...
- The Great Windows 11 Computer Extinction Experimenton March 28, 2023 at 5:00 pm
There was a time when a new version of Windows was a really big deal, such the launch of Windows 95 for which the tones of the Rolling Stones’ Start me up could be heard across all manner of ...
- More than half of sharks, rays in Mediterranean at risk of extinction: Studyon March 27, 2023 at 8:44 pm
They are at risk due to growing threat of fishing pressure, climate crisis, pollution, says University of Valencia - Anadolu Agency ...
- Extinction Rebellion protesters enter grounds of Eindhoven Airport, blocking private jet areaon March 25, 2023 at 3:37 am
Several hundred climate activists from Extinction Rebellion entered the grounds of Eindhoven Airport on Saturday, where planes take off and land. The climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) ...
- How Mammoth Poop Is Changing What We Know About Their Extinctionon March 24, 2023 at 3:52 pm
If the later extinction date turns out to be true, it would mean that mammoths and humans coexisted for thousands of years, putting a huge dent in the theory that we hunted them to extinction.
- New-sized mammals are more often at risk of extinctionon March 20, 2023 at 5:41 am
New-sized mammals are more often at risk ... Size matters. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg, among others, have mapped which factors threaten the survival of animal species on isolated ...
- 13 Animal Species Brought Back From the Brink of Extinctionon March 19, 2023 at 4:26 pm
We may earn a commission from links on this page. New animals and plants are being lost to extinction every year—more than 160 species disappeared just in the past decade. Many more are ...
- Extinct but not gone – the thylacine continues to fascinate uson March 19, 2023 at 2:45 pm
New methods in genetics and reproductive biology hold the promise that de-extinction – resurrecting extinct species – could soon be possible. But bringing back extinct species is costly.
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De-extinction
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