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
- Bringing back the woolly mammoth to roam Earth again. Is it even possible? | The Excerpton April 18, 2024 at 1:45 pm
A company is at the heart of an evolving science that aims to see ancient animals return in the name of preserving and promoting biodiversity.
- woolly mammothon April 17, 2024 at 5:00 pm
Russian scientists say they have a ‘high chance’ of cloning a woolly mammoth Woolly mammoth blood and tissue discovered in Siberia in 2013 will give scientists “a high chance” to clone the ...
- What ‘de-extinction’ of woolly mammoths can teach us: a Q&A with evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiroon April 3, 2024 at 5:00 pm
Related: Giant sloths and woolly mammoths ... “I’m going to clone a mammoth.” But in order to clone a mammoth, you need a living cell. You need an intact nuclear genome of a mammoth ...
- Scientists to Clone Woolly Mammoth in Five Yearson March 16, 2024 at 5:20 pm
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- Of Mammoths and Menon March 12, 2024 at 2:52 am
Ancient hunters killed woolly mammoths for their meat ... soft mammoth tissue in hopes of finding viable cells to clone. (See “Bringing Them Back to Life.”) A few years ago this local boss ...
- Reviving the Ice Age - U.S. Scientists Clone Mammoths to Combat Climate Changeon March 12, 2024 at 2:37 am
A world where woolly mammoths are brought back to life through science and technology and trample through nature sounds more like something from "Jurassic Park." Yet a scientific breakthrough ...
- Scientists take a step closer to resurrecting the woolly mammothon March 6, 2024 at 8:56 am
The woolly mammoth was a big, shaggy species of elephant ... the dodo bird and other extinct species back to life using the latest cloning and genetic engineering techniques.
- Is the woolly mammoth really on the brink of being resurrected?on March 6, 2024 at 8:02 am
Is it really possible to bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction ... transfer the edited genomes into elephant eggs using the cloning technique used to create Dolly the sheep.
- Scientists Might Bring Back These 7 Extinct Animalson November 1, 2023 at 3:50 am
Bringing Back the Woolly Mammoth: Cloning Scientists recovered woolly mammoth DNA from well-preserved frozen carcasses found in Siberia. Using advanced genetic editing techniques, researchers want to ...
- Woolly Mammoth: The Autopsyon May 21, 2023 at 8:34 pm
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. Advertisement ...
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Cloning Woolly Mammoths
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The Latest Bing News on:
De-extinction
- A rare mammal with a trunk-like snout and webbed feet: The Iberian desman faces extinctionon April 24, 2024 at 7:34 am
The ‘Spanish platypus’ is unique to the Iberian Peninsula and a jewel of evolution that has lost up to 70% of the geographical range it occupied three decades ago ...
- How a Cloned Ferret Inspired a DNA Bank for Endangered Specieson April 22, 2024 at 5:22 am
The birth of a cloned black-footed ferret named Elizabeth Ann, and her two new sisters, has sparked a new pilot program to preserve the tissues of hundreds of endangered species “just in case” ...
- Reviving the Past, Safeguarding the Future: Challenges and Innovations in Cell Culture for De-Extinctionon April 19, 2024 at 2:28 pm
In this webinar, our expert speakers will discuss the cell culture aspects of the de-extinction project, from making a large number of precision genome edits in single cells, growing and expanding ...
- Vaquita Survey 2024: The Search For The World's Rarest Mammal Is Onon April 19, 2024 at 7:44 am
Vaquita porpoises live along a small strip of Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California, which will be the focus of the 2024 survey. Two ships will carry a team of experienced observers as the survey goes in ...
- Bringing back the woolly mammoth to roam Earth again. Is it even possible? | The Excerpton April 18, 2024 at 1:45 pm
A company is at the heart of an evolving science that aims to see ancient animals return in the name of preserving and promoting biodiversity.
- Colossal Announces $7.5M in New Investments in Ancient DNA Academic Researchon April 17, 2024 at 3:14 pm
Colossal Biosciences’ academic investments include partnerships with Stockholm University, the University of Potsdam, the University of California Santa Cruz, the University of Alaska, McMaster ...
- Where the Xerces Blue Butterfly Was Lost, Its Closest Relative Is Now Filling Inon April 16, 2024 at 6:14 am
More than 80 years after the iconic Xerces Blue butterfly vanished from San Francisco, researchers have analyzed century-old specimens of the butterfly to track down its closest living relative, the ...
- The Tasmanian tiger might be extinct but Aussies are determined to find it or bring it backon April 14, 2024 at 4:32 pm
Pask has raised $15 million for a de-extinction project in partnership with American company Colossal Biosciences, which counts Leonardo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton and even the C.I.A. among its backers.
- The Frozen Skin Of Dead Rhinos Could Save The Northern White Rhino From Extinctionon April 11, 2024 at 4:00 am
While the northern white rhino ( Ceratotherium simum cottoni) females are infertile, it’s hoped a surrogate such as the closely related southern white rhino ( C. simum simum) could step in to carry ...
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De-extinction
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