Woolly mammoth cells are revived in breakthrough experiment
“Some researchers are attempting to bring the mammoth back with the use of gene editing”
Last fall, I reported that plans were being made to clone an extinct species of horse as well as saber-tooth tigers.
Now comes news that Japanese scientists have awakened the cells of an extinct woolly mammoth as part of a long-term approach to resurrect that species.
Researchers from Kindai University in Osaka extracted bone marrow and muscle tissue from a long-frozen beast and injected it into the ovaries of a mouse, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports.
The experiment revived the 28,000-year-old creature’s cells, triggering “signs of biological activity,” according to the researchers.
“[It’s] a significant step towards bringing mammoths back from the dead,” Kei Miyamoto, one of the study’s authors, told the Nikkei Asian Review.
The Japanese team introduced portions of the mammoth’s cell nuclei into the reproductive cells of mice and evaluated the result.
The [cell nuclei] structures were then injected into mouse oocytes – a cell in an ovary which can undergo genetic division to form an egg cell.
The team said following the procedure a “pronucleus-like structure budded from the injected … mammoth nucleus”.
They also found possible signs of repair to damaged mammoth DNA.
“These results indicate that a part of mammoth nuclei possesses the potential for nuclear reconstitution,” the scientists said…
While some evidence of biological processes were seen, the cell damage is too much for bringing the mammoth back to life.
“We have also learned that damage to cells was very profound. We are yet to see even cell divisions. I have to say we are very far from recreating a mammoth.”
Woolly mammoths went extinct more than 4,000 years ago, with some scientists believing they died off from the changing climate and human hunters.
Despite Miyamoto’s comments, some researchers are attempting to bring the mammoth back with the use of gene editing, including the controversial CRISPR gene editing tool.
For Legal Insurrection readers who enjoy detailed scientific analysis, the team’s research and results have been published in Nature.
Researchers have observed biological activity after transplanting cell nuclei from the 28,000-year-old remains of a woolly mammoth from the Siberian permafrost into mice oocytes. Read the paper, published in @SciReports, here: https://t.co/21TwWRa8aX pic.twitter.com/DkjfoBFSB6
— Nature Research (@nresearchnews) March 12, 2019
In response to which, I offer this from Jurassic Park.
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Comments
“”they died off from the changing climate and human hunters.””
How will they manage to blame it on Trump and conservatives?
Woolly mammoth will be the first species to go extinct twice. Yay science.
But not until the vote illegally a few trillion times for the Fake Democrat Party…..
They must be relatives of the Democrats.
Russians are cloning the mammoth too and plan on having tourist parks.
They plan on mixing an elephant with the mammoth
Or, with frogs.
Or with Democrats!
::::ducking::::
The trumpcean climate period no doubt was the cause for loss of prehistoric life as we know it
I read a book a couple of years ago about reviving the Woolly Mammoth and how a Russian scientist has been working on the project for decades. I’ll be darned if I can’t remember the name of the book (it was a light, easy read)!
With the use of CRISPR, this is more like Jurassic World than Jurassic Park.
Also, CRISPR is amazing technology. We, as a society, just have to manage it properly.
Anyone visiting Los Angeles should make an effort to visit the La Brea Tar Pits, together with the museum.
You might be surprised to find that just a mere few thousand years ago there were mammoths and mastodons here in Los Angeles.
As well as an American lion larger than today’s African lion.
::: chuckle :::
Luke don’t count on it.
We Fly Over Country people know
what lives in Hollywood now.
I have some Mastadon bones that we dug out of a peat bog in northern Indiana back in the 70’s. A femur, a rib and a vertebra.
The whole thing was there. A cow(?) on her back with a baby beside it. Most was still under the water table, but the landowner donated the rest to a small college which excavated the rest of it.
There was still pliable tissue on the bones
Not sure the cold prairies covered with shrubs and wild flowers exist anymore. Perhaps in Canada somewhere.
Part of the Russian project? Terraforming some of the sub arctic lands to recreate sub arctic pastures for grazing herd species like old/ancient breed horses- they think by compacting and churning some semi permafrost pastures reproduces the trampling effect of those grazing species – so they’ve tried numerous methods like driving tracked vehicles over areas and that sort of thing – then pasture the horses there. They’ve lots of DNA from the frozen beasts, so time will tell.
A mammoth gestating in a mouse. I think they should be prepared for a Caesarean!
WHY even attempt to do this?
it’s like – has anyone ever seen Jurassic Park?
I know it is just a movie but there is a lesson about it
humans cannot play God without consequence
look at what happened with the killer bees
and that was just a fucking bee
can you imagine fucking giant mammoths and sabertooth tigers hybrids running amok?
these things went extinct for a reason
I would go along as long as they were confined to LA, NYC, Chicago, Detroit, and DC.
Dearborn, Flint and Saginaw Michigan all have merit.
I do think that there things even these creatures wouldn’t eat.
This would be a Tinker Toy stuff . . . a loooonnng way from playing God.
Think about weaponizing a Sabertooth. That would be a great way to deal with palestinians 🙂 Sabertooth with remote control.
But the Democrats think they can train them to vote for them!
Because the rest of us won’t be held down from scientific progress by naysayers.
A movie/book (admittedly with valuable lessons) is your best argument, but it’s still fiction with a doomsday scenario. “We’ll destroy ourselves with technology” doesn’t sound too far from “we’ll destroy ourselves with oil”
By the way, if you want to think more seriously about how technology should be carefully analyzed by a society for cost/benefit, then you should read Next by the same author (Michael Crichton).
naysaying?
you ever heard of the killer bee and how it came to be?
once upon a time not so long ago a group of researchers down in Brazil decided, hey our honey bees are not producing as much honey as we want so lets try cross breeding them with african bees
all was good until one mishap later a couple years later, they spread like wildfire all throughout South America and into parts of North America
humans turned an almost harmless honey bee into an ultra aggressive and invasive killing machine
and THIS is just a friggen insect the size of a thumbnail
***
now this naysayer asks this:
what is the fucking point of this science experiment?
atleast with the killer bee – you can say the scientists were trying to better mass produce honey
but trying to replicate mammoth and sabertooth DNA on existing creatures does not sound like a sound plan that has any positive impacts going forward
all I see is another mishap causing future calamity on an almost fragile ecosystem
Don’t these mad scientists know that Climate Change will kill off any new woolly mammoths before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can say, “Cow farts!!”?
Too hot? Maybe Gillette can try for a comeback; an ad with a disposable shaving an entire Mammuthus primigenius might do the trick.
And an ad campaign telling mammoths not to act like mammoths because if offends and belittles other species.
Yeah. “Ooh, ah,” that’s how it always starts. But then later there’s running and screaming.
Ian Malcolm: Don’t you see the danger, John, inherent in what you’re doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun.
What can we do and what SHOULD we do.
Human beings have always strived for autonomy. We want to submit to no one, no nature, no deity. We even get to the point of making claims that we can control the things we can’t, or claim responsibility for things we aren’t responsible for just to boost our own image of self importance.