Quantcast
ZME Science
  • CoronavirusNEW
  • News
  • Environment
    • Climate
    • Animals
    • Renewable Energy
    • Eco tips
    • Environmental Issues
    • Green Living
  • Health
    • Alternative Medicine
    • Anatomy
    • Diseases
    • Genetics
    • Mind & Brain
    • Nutrition
  • Future
  • Space
  • Feature
    • Feature Post
    • Art
    • Great Pics
    • Design
    • Fossil Friday
    • AstroPicture
    • GeoPicture
    • Did you know?
    • Offbeat
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Environment Animals

Cloning a mammoth ? Not so fast!

Mihai Andrei by Mihai Andrei
December 7, 2011
in Animals, Genetics
ADVERTISEMENT

In a recent post I was telling you about Russian and Japanese researchers working together with the purpose of cloning a mammoth from bone marrow DNA recently found in Siberia. However, many researchers are extremely skeptical about this, including some of the world’s leading experts.

“C’mon, it’ll never happen. Not in my lifetime,” said Webb Miller, a Penn State computer scientist and genomicist who helped decipher the genetic code of a woolly mammoth.

Japanese and Russian scientists have been trying for a long time to find the key to cloning mammoths, and they recently declared they found a suitable candidate in the Siberian permafrost. Their plan is to take the nuclei of bone marrow cells, transplant them into egg cells extracted from elephants and then implant the cloned embryos into a surrogate elephant mother. Their news report claims “there is a high likelihood” that biologically active nuclei can be extracted from the frozen marrow. But Miller doesn’t believe that.

Get more science news like this...

Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

ADVERTISEMENT

“DNA from a woolly mammoth is a mess,” he explained. “It’s fractured into very short pieces, and there’s a lot of postmortem DNA damage other than just breakage. The code gets damaged a lot.”

Even if they manage to go through with the procedure, the odds for cloned animals aren’t really that good – especially with extinct or near extinction species. There is no official number, but there are way, way more failures than successes. However, Miller says there is much value in studying and understanding extinct DNA, even without a ‘resurrection’.

“I’m looking out my window, and 13,000 years ago, there were some really interesting animals out there,” he mused. “They’re gone now, and I’d like to know why. … Understanding which species survived and which ones didn’t, looking at their genome and trying to figure that out, that’s interesting to me.”

Mihai Andrei

Mihai Andrei

Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child. Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today.

Follow ZME on social media

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Coronavirus
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Feature
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Coronavirus
  • News
  • Environment
    • Climate
    • Animals
    • Renewable Energy
    • Eco tips
    • Environmental Issues
    • Green Living
  • Health
    • Alternative Medicine
    • Anatomy
    • Diseases
    • Genetics
    • Mind & Brain
    • Nutrition
  • Future
  • Space
  • Feature
    • Feature Post
    • Art
    • Great Pics
    • Design
    • Fossil Friday
    • AstroPicture
    • GeoPicture
    • Did you know?
    • Offbeat
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.