
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
- The Texas company reviving the extinct woolly mammoth adds the dodo to its to-do liston November 21, 2023 at 5:00 am
Remember the organization that in 2021 announced it was going to bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction? Its leaders are building a to-do list of species they hope to revive, and some of them ...
- Woolly mammoths could be back on Earth by 2028on November 20, 2023 at 5:00 am
Scientists are attempting to bring woolly mammoths back to life and hope to complete the ambitious project by 2028.
- Our fascination with mammothson November 20, 2023 at 1:11 am
How the legacy of these woolly giants persists in pop culture, storytelling, ecology and even the controversial idea of de-extinction ...
- De-extinction of the woolly mammoth by 2028? Colossal Biosciences plans to combine DNA from ancient species with living Asian elephants to birth a calf that could live on ...on November 17, 2023 at 4:03 am
Colossal Biosciences has mammoth plans to bring back extinct animals, including the woolly mammoth, the dodo bird, and the Tasmanian tiger ...
- Plans To Clone The Woolly Mammoth And Re Introduce Them To Siberia Crossword Clueon November 11, 2023 at 7:44 pm
For the word puzzle clue of plans to clone the woolly mammoth and re introduce them to siberia, the Sporcle Puzzle Library found the following results. Explore more crossword clues and answers by ...
- How To Clone A Woolly Mammothon December 23, 2022 at 10:46 pm
The Siberian discovery of the best-preserved woolly mammoth on record has teams of experts working ... University are using the latest advances in DNA manipulation in hopes of cloning the furry giant ...
- 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 ...
- Scientists Just Came Closer Than Ever to Cloning a Woolly Mammothon March 13, 2019 at 6:54 am
In 2011, researchers discovered the frozen body of a woolly mammoth in Siberian permafrost. Now, a team of Japanese scientists has coaxed biological reactions from the mammoth's 28,000-year-old ...
- New documentary explores cloning woolly mammothson November 28, 2014 at 6:12 am
The remains of a mammoth, nicknamed Buttercup, are the subject of a new Smithsonian channel documentary called "How to Clone a Woolly Mammoth." The program follows scientists, including ...
The Latest Google Headlines on:
Cloning Woolly Mammoths
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The Latest Bing News on:
De-extinction
- Jean-Jacques Hublin, paleoanthropologist: ‘Evolution is the story of a great extinction’on November 26, 2023 at 12:07 pm
In a conversation with EL PAÍS, one of the most respected paleoanthropologists in the world offers a heterodox look at his work as a researcher. He explains that prehistory brings up questions that ...
- Cats have driven many species to extinction. Experts share tactics for reducing feline destructionon November 26, 2023 at 2:30 am
As Herrera pointed out, bird species are hardly alone in being targeted by outdoor cats.
- Pleistocene Park Spotlights Permafrost and De-Extinction Awareness at COP28 2023on November 26, 2023 at 12:35 am
Pleistocene Park takes centre stage in the Green Zone at COP28, highlighting the global implications of permafrost thaw and the exciting possibilitie ...
- The IUCN says which animals may face extinction. But is it up to the job?on November 22, 2023 at 6:00 am
Twenty-five scientists on conservation frontlines publish concerns that the red list of threatened species is outdated and unreliable ...
- mesh conference to explore animal ‘de-extinction’ and how Canada’s digital policy has gone off the railson November 21, 2023 at 11:46 pm
Today the mesh conference announced that biotech leader Ben Lamm and prominent lawyer Michael Geist will keynote at the Dec 6-7 event in Toronto.
- Lost animal species that returned from extinctionon November 19, 2023 at 11:46 am
Sometimes animals come back from the brink in a more controversial way. De-extinction, also rather dramatically known as resurrection biology, refers to the process of generating an organism that was ...
- De-extinction of the woolly mammoth by 2028? Colossal Biosciences plans to combine DNA from ancient species with living Asian elephants to birth a calf that could live on ...on November 17, 2023 at 4:03 am
Colossal Biosciences has mammoth plans to bring back extinct animals, including the woolly mammoth, the dodo bird, and the Tasmanian tiger ...
- Our fascination with mammothson November 16, 2023 at 4:00 pm
How the legacy of these woolly giants persists in pop culture, storytelling, ecology and even the controversial idea of de-extinction The way Travis Delawski tells it, he woke up in the morning, had a ...
- Protein de-extinction: How Neanderthals and mammoths could help find new antibioticson November 15, 2023 at 4:00 pm
He calls his research “molecular de-extinction.” Pointing out a plastic model of a Neanderthal protein that contained a peptide with antimicrobial properties, De la Fuente said, “As far as we know, ...
- Woolly Mammoth de-extinction project is underwayon November 15, 2023 at 12:05 am
In a historic building in Deep Ellum, a colossal effort is underway to bring some of the most famously extinct animals back to life.
The Latest Google Headlines on:
De-extinction
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