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Subscribe to RSSHendrik Poinar, a scientist who believes he is close to cracking the woolly mammoth's genetic code, says that cloning extinct species is now possible. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.
Reports from Japan suggest that long-extinct woolly mammoths could be cloned back into existence within five years, but don't hold your breath.
"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 researchers have been working for years to find a suitable woolly mammoth specimen in the Siberian permafrost, and they recently told Japan's Kyodo news service that they recovered what they hope will be viable bone marrow from a frozen thigh bone recovered near Batagay in eastern Russia's Sakha Republic (a.k.a. Yakutia).
Their plan is to take the nuclei from bone marrow cells, transplant them into egg cells extracted from elephants, and implant the cloned embryos into the wombs of mama elephants for gestation. This is the technique that has given rise to cloned mammals ranging from Dolly the sheep to pigs, cats, dogs and monkeys.
Kyodo's report says "there is a high likelihood" that biologically active nuclei can be extracted from the frozen marrow. Researchers on the case include Russian experts from Yakutsk's Mammoth Museum and Japanese biologists from Kinki University in Osaka Prefecture. Kyodo said a full-fledged joint research project would be launched next year.
Woolly mammoths haven't walked the earth for thousands of years, but the idea of resurrecting the species seems to have a powerful hold on the collective psyche. Some folks have even talked about setting aside a "Pleistocene Park" for mammoths and other Ice Age animals.
Miller, however, isn't buying it.
"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 the DNA is intact and the nuclei are successfully merged with elephant egg cells, the success rate for cloning animals — and particularly extinct and near-extinct species — is not good. Generally speaking, there are scores of failures for each successful pregnancy brought to term.
A couple of years ago, scientists succeeded in producing a Pyrenean ibex from tissue that was taken from the last representative of the subspecies in 1999, but the cloned progeny survived for only seven minutes. Attempts to clone an Asian gaur didn't end much better. Australian researchers had to scrap plans to clone the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction, although they later succeeded in transferring part of a Tasmanian tiger gene into mouse embryos.
These cases suggest that there's not much of a chance of re-creating the mammoths. Genetic engineering may eventually produce a "hairy elephant" with mammoth-like characteristics. But a creature genetically identical to the behemoths of the Ice Age? "If somebody does that, I will eat my hat," Miller said. "And I'll wonder why they did it."
Miller said studying the DNA of long-extinct species has value, even if the efforts don't result in 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."
But when it comes to living, breathing animals, "I'm personally more interested in keeping the species we have," Miller said. "I'd like to keep tigers around for a while."
Despite Miller's qualms, the quest to re-create the woolly mammoth could well continue for the next five years or longer. And that's not all. Paleontologist Jack Horner is moving ahead with his plan to modify chicken DNA and make the barnyard birds look more like the dinosaurs they descended from. Dino-chickens vs. woolly mammephants? That sounds like a great plot for the next "Jurassic Park" sequel. ...
More about mammoths:
- X-ray scans reveal baby mammoth mysteries
- Dog skull found with mammoth bone in mouth
- Mammoths mated with a different elephant species
- Mammoth resurrection on the way?
- Woolly mammoth's DNA mapped
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WOW!That takes your breath away.I would love to see one.They're Majestic and Magnificent.
Then George Lucas will have a premise for his next movie, Mammoths: Attack of the Clones (what can I say, I'm a Star Wars guy)
Kidding aside, they would be neat to see in person. Maybe we'll get there some day...
wait...10 years... Japan corners the market on pygmy-mammoths...pint sized bundles of woolly pachyderm cuteness...
I agree w/ the scientist in the article...we should be more interested in keeping the current species we have...The mamoth went extinct for a reason and had it's time. besides Humans have a horrible track record at taking an existing species and putting it in a new environment ...we generally screw up the environment . I think the Russians and Japanese need to clone some brain cells.
I am 100% sure we can clone a mammoth, but I am not 100% sure we have the technology to do it yet. I actually doubt we have all the necessary technology to do it. But if we have the code, we can do it. I personally hope it is done someday, along with cloning other extinct animals like the Dodo bird. How cool would it be if they also brought back the saber toothed tiger, or the giant sloth? More amazing will be if we ever bring back one of our human ancestor species.
Brian, this is a fallacy. There's absolutely no reason why we can't "keep our current species" and clone mammoths as well. In fact, cloning mammoths increases our overall knowledge and helps us "keep the current species".
I wonder how they would taste? Reminds me of Fred Flintstone and the mammoth ribs flipping his car in the show's intro
That dude is a killjoy.
We do not have sufficient habitat for the living specimens we have left. African and Indian elephants are decreasing in numbers as unwise human development destroys the few remaining land area where they can exist in the wild.
It is the fault of human and the selfish idea that land can be owned that is causing the current mega-extinction.
If humans claim 100% of the earth and clear cut everything (which we have almost completed doing by the way) that leaves no room for wild animals and plants.
Soon, the planet will be dominated by domesticated species. No one seems concerned that we are extinguishing wild species by our expanding "ownership" of land.
Life on Earth arose because of inter-species symbiosis and the tremendous diversity of terrain, plants, water and weather. As we kill every remaining wild acre of natural foliage, we are all poorer for it.
Will not a day come when the extinction of life removes the last bio-systems that maintain human life? Who shall be responsible when life falters and ultimately fails?
Oh, please. It's just one mammoth. Elephants are dying by the scores in Africa because of the drought. We can replace them with cooler looking ones.
A simple answer fits 90% of recent extinctions... human greed. Humans, from early to more recent times have hunted into oblivion everything they could collectively kill and eat, turn into clothing, or mount on a wall as a symbol of conquering power, including the mammoths, the great auk, pyrenean ibex and Asian gaur as well.
Today, our incessant thirst for fast, powerful and private transportation is leading to an inescapable alteration in our planet's atmosphere, with the increased CO2 emissions from billions of vehicles, as well as power plants and industrial production, driving a climatic shift, which in the worst case scenarios may bring about the extinction of hundreds, if not thousands of additional species of plants and animals who will be unable to adapt to the coming changes.
We'll be fine, never fear, we might even enjoy the warmer climate, but a lot of animals, and I'm not just talking about polar bears, are going to go bye-bye. Enjoy 'em while you can.
It seems Mars is having the same CO2 issues, it's polar caps are shrinking as well. Must be all those dreaded SUV's. What are we to do about all the extinctions due to non-human life forms on land and in sea, hunting and eating other non-human life forms in order to survive?
In case you weren't aware....plant life thrives on CO2. If it gets cut back will you then predict doom for the vegetation.. that emits oxygen.. that other life forms rely on to survive? When the snow melts from global warming and grapes can be grown again on Greenland as they were 1000+ years ago, will we all become extinct? What caused the warming way back then? (Look in the sky for that bright yellow warm ball of fire).
I'm not mocking you, I just can't get into the gloom and doom scenarios too many people are diving into these days.
There's a lot of problems with your statement.
One: while it's been an anti-anthropological global warming talking point for years, the actual citation for Mars's supposed temperature changes have been hard to find.
Two: yes, plants need CO2 to grow, but adding more CO2 to the atmosphere isn't overnight going to cause crop yields to somehow double. Carbon dioxide is only one factor in plant growth and it's typically not the limiting one, that goes to water or soil content. And the melting of glaciers worldwide means that fresh water is liable to become quite limited .
Three: yes, it was warmer than it currently is in the past. But the so called Middle Ages Warm Period wasn't quite as impressive as it's sometimes made out to be- there's a lot of evidence pointing to it being primarily limited to Europe and the North Atlantic, with less effect everywhere else. The current rates of climate change being observed are pretty darned rapid compared to back then, too.
You might have trouble getting into the gloom and doom, but sadly, reality doesn't really care what you believe.
The level of CO2 in the air varies by season, altitude, and time of day. During the active growing season, the CO2 level in a cornfield on a calm day can reach daytime lows which prevent crop growth. Most of the time there is sufficient wind to replenish the CO2. Artificially increasing the CO2 level around growing plants can dramatically increase their growth and reduce water requirements. However, the increase in planetary CO2 is not that dramatic. The increase in crop yields will be incremental. Also, it isn't just crops that will grow faster, weeds will too.
The earth has been much warmer in the past with much higher CO2 levels. The Eocene thermal maximum was so warm that there were no polar icecaps. The climate near the arctic was sufficiently warm for alligators and turtles. Of course that was some 52 million years ago. (https://nice.larc.nasa.gov/?q=node/488)
Global warming is real. Many plants and animals will suffer as a result, but just as many will benefit. What is really hurting large animals worldwide is the loss of habitat due to human encroachment. Before cloning a woolly mammoth, I think we need to make sure that we don't drive any additional elephants species into extinction. (Plus, I would rather have the thylacine brought back first.)
Dale,
B.S. man did not "Hunt" the animals into oblivion........that theory is complete bunk. The Climate changed too rapidly for them to adapt. Lets take a bunch of scientist and drop them into Africa with just some spears, Only weapon they had back then, and see how they fare against some Elephants..........Tell them they can kill as many as they want. Let's see how long they last.
Whenever someone says "More CO2 = Gud fer da plants" they are basically displaying their oversimplified understanding of global climate change. It's not that simple, as therapsid said. There are many more factors involved, not too mention it doesn't help much having more CO2 when we are simultaneously cutting down rainforest (the Earth's lungs essentially) at an alarming rate.
More CO2 and nothign to breath it.
Also a common argument that 'natural warming/cooling processes happened before, so that's what is causing it' is mind-numbingly boneheaded, and let me explain why:
1) Climate scientists know about these natural processes, and FACTOR THEM into their findings. It's not like scientists are unaware of natural warming/cooling processes and denialists have some esoteric knowledge that scientists aren't taking into account lol.
2) A natural process of warming/cooling does not automatically negate any possible effects that man's activities may have on the climate. Both can occur simultaneously. They are not mutually exclusive. The whole argument "It's either natural processes, or man-made processes" is a false-dichotomy (a logical fallacy).
3) We have already permanently destroyed habitats, forests, waterways. We have already changed weather patterns with our cities. We have already significantly affected numerous natural systems throughout the planet... how then would climate be out of our grasp?

I am kind of glad for extinction. For example, T-Rex would be a poor choice for a neighbor. As for higher CO2 in the atmosphere causing plants to be quite prolific, look at the Pennsylvanian period with its high CO2 air. Look at the coal beds of the US laid down during this period, some of them are hundreds of feet thick. Each foot of hard coal came from about 10 feet of organic muck. Do the math, 200 feet of coal came from 2000 feet of organic muck. That is close to a half mile of muck. The current swamps of Florida are at best 100 feet thick in places. The world changes and not always to the benefit of it's occupants.
While I understand your musings, what do they have to do with the subject of the article, which was the cloning of mammoths? We all are aware of warming and CO2 issues. Please try to stick directly to the article's subject.
@Shuklack,
I would also point out that plants only benefit from CO2 that is at the surface and available during the part of their aspiration cycle that takes in CO2. The rest of the time they soak up oxygen. They do nothing with elemental carbon and carbon monoxide. The vast bulk of man-made CO2 rises immediately into the high atmosphere where it is NOT available to plants.
And for @Magnifico --- one of the current major scientific issues in global warming is the trillions of tons of methane that are attritable to vegetation, and animal dung and remains that are buried in the permafrost. You are talking about the accumulations of hundreds of thousands of years that will end up as methane, a greenhouse gas that is many times worse than CO2 and would be in addition to the trillions of tons that would be released from warming seas where it is held as hydrates.
One reason that mammoths are such a hot topic right now is that the rapidly thawing permafrost is exposing the carcasses and bones of mammoths and other pre-Lesser-Dryas American mammals at an increasing rate. This means that scientists have both a greater availability of possible DNA and a greater incentive to do such research before the carcasses and bones are further degraded by a warmer environment. That's what global warming has to do with the topic of the thread. It was only a digression if you do not understand the topic very well.
Shuklack so what you are saying is that the human race needs to be reduced or eliminated so why dont you and all the others that seem to believe this get in the line.
Dan Derusha: "It seems like Mars is having the same CO2 issues."
No, it is not. The atmosphere of Mars is nearly pure CO2, so it is nowhere near the same issue. And the fact that it does so "without SUVs" does not show that SUV's don't produce CO2. Maybe you should pay more attention to whether these "zingers" you pull off the intrenet actually make any sense.
I bet they are also delicious.
BBQ mammoth ribs, mmmmMMMmmmm yabadabadoooo.
This is a great idea. Once they get the hang of doing it, everybody will want one. I'm gonna get mine right away. Thank Buddha I don't have a condo association to answer to!
One day humans will be extinct. An intelligent being will discover and reverse-engineer our DNA, look at the mess we left behind, and think, "Nah..."
Thus proving that they deserve the label of "intelligent" more than we do.
This is horrible… Animal cloning should be prohibited because we are playing God by trying to bring back the extinct Woolly Mammoth. I bet human being is next on the list. If we succeed in cloning human beings, then every “competent” people will be cloned to keep order, and weak “incompetent” people will die out.
I can't tell if this is satire or not.
Nature herself makes many clones. In fact, asexual reproduction is incredibly common. The same cell is just splitting itself off into an exact copy. Bananas are a good example of that. And what about twins?
Secondly, no one is going to start breeding with clones. The problem with clones is that the DNA is already damaged when it gets copied over. A lot of clones are sterile. Even more would carry genetic defects of already damaged genes. Reproducing with clones isn't even close to viable for humans.
Besides, I really want to see a wooly mammoth. Or a giant ground sloth.
It wouldn't be a true clone. It would be a cross between a mammoth and a elephant.
God gave us free will as well as the intelligence to acheive things like this. I would hate to disappoint God if this was his master plan all along...
Religion is simply a tool used by the simple minded to try and bend other simple minded people to follow their own ideals. Don't be so naive. Do you realize how many "Gods" have existed in the short time homo sapiens have lived on this planet? Quit taking the easy road by saying your "God" did it, and let the intelligent minority find the real answers.
It never ceases to amaze me how limited the foresight is of the supposedly omnipotent and omniscient deity is, especially when it comes to human medical and technological advancement. I mean, seriously, this god knows everything and has a plan for how it's all supposed to turn out, but is unable to work a thin strip of latex, or penicillin, or a geneticist who figured out how to take DNA from one cell and stick it into the nucleus of another into said equation?
That's not the job I expect from an omniscient being, that's the job I expect from a fast food worker who's only employed because of nepotism.
Hey Lorcan. Apparently, you are not familiar with this kind of cloning. Such a clone is not a cross with anything.
@terryx1st, the sub-government has lots of secrets. i am willing to bet if it is possible to clone human they already have. just think about all of the things that have come out inthe last 20 years that where top-secret. JUST SAYIN..
We've been working on this in Florida.
Fascinating exercise. I think the efforts here are to replace Rick Scott.
Good science.
Sorry to make this political.
why bother?
lol
BBQ RIBS that can tip your car over maybe....yabadabadoooo!
We already have a saber tooth cat -- a large ginger with a bad overbite.
I bet mammoth fur coats will be the rage in ten years!
That is actually a interesting point.
What if cloning allowed us to wear endangered furs again. I can only imagine the fit PETA would put out. And I may be inclined to agree..cloning anything for anything is a scary slippery slope.
I'd wear the 'fur' coat of peta cultist... how many to make one though...hmmmm... ^_^
Just ask Jame Gumb (a.k.a. Buffalo Bill)
Don't wear the skin of animals. Look at what happened to the naugas. Everybody wanted it and now there isn't a naugahide to be had.
@dragonmaster, and what about all of the cute little vinyl animals? it wont be long and they'll all be gone. JUST SAYIN..
I don't know if we should or shouldn't attempt to clone a mammoth but what's disappointing to me is that the Japanese(and the Russians) want to try, but OUR boy-genius scientist has no confidence and just assumes it can't be done. No wonder the Japanese took away a large part of our automotive industry's sales and cornered the market on electronics for decades. It's because of this kind of negative thinking.
Didn't the "experts" tell us for a long time that cloning wasn't possible? When you say something can't be done, history has shown you often end up looking foolish. You'd think a scientist would be wise to that.
He is, because he's correct in his assessment. DNA breaks down quite quickly even under the best of conditions, and without a full strand to work with the chances of cloning a viable animal are... none whatsoever. It'd be like trying to build a Lego set when 2/3rds of the pieces are missing and half of the remainder were left in the sun until they warped completely out of shape. No matter how hard you try, you're not going to get the thing on the cover from that.
But at its core, DNA only consists of the four nucleotides (guanine, cytosine, adenine, thymine). While one set of "legos" might have 1/3 of its peices missing or melted, we can create a full set because we have several broken sets to assemble from. We can, in fact, assemble a DNA strand from scratch if we know the sequence.
This expert is a computer scientist and bioinformatics specialist. These people do good work, but have a woeful understanding of wet bench-work. It can and will be done if there is enough political or economic willpower (and given time of course).
@ a Circus Circus in your home town a Woolly Mammoth.. yay.. Playing GoD is fun.. there should be more godly actions done by humans.. imagine T-Rex's running round.. would be a fun thing to see..
It's all coming together: cloning dinosaurs and woolly mammoths ... advances in robotics and automated control systems; including armed systems with both ballistic and high-energy weapons. All we need now is for them to meet on New Years Eve in Times Square for "Jurassic Park Smack Down: T-Rex vs Terminator".
However guilty we drive ourselves into feeling for these (.."lions and tigers...") of present day, there are many reasons they will either adapt and survive or cede to extinction. The same will/has happened with humans. Nothing lasts forever. Enjoy and cherish it while you can then move on. Messing with Mother Nature always results in devastating unintended circumstances, always.
herds of these meat wagons on 4 feet could live in the bleak northern climate areas of most areas, without a problem, with some added feed from the south, breeding them for food would be simple, good use of land, and feed the world with giant BBQ RIBS!!! YABADABADOOO!!!!!
How about a Neanderthal -- alias Bigfoot!
Can anybody really doubt that in 200 years this will be a reality? Assuming civilization survives. I was told ten years ago that transmitting pictures to your computer from a cell phone would take decades
And everyone was astonished when Bill Gates said someday you would be able to pick out a vacant seat for an upcoming basketball game, pay instantly for a ticket that you would then print at home. AND do online banking! And people said not in MY lifetime!
Other then for science there is no reason to bring this Animal back from extinction Unless you plan to have it on display at a zoo. I tell you what I would not like to be brought back from extinction just to become a Zoo attraction to be studied, poked and probed. This Animal also has no place in the modern eco system. A great work of science though I must agree.
I'm for it except we really don't have room for them which is the reason they got extinct in the first place like all big ice age animals. let me correct myself, we had the room physically but not mentally, but we didn't want the big things around cause we couldn't control them so we killed them, how egotistically human! ( guess what would happen if humans were left to do what they want to big animals in Africa, like Elephants, Rhinos, Lions etc....with the help of the white folks of course...)never know, we could be smarter this time around but I don't see it overall, we're not quite there as a race, not all together, and we might never be.
People have been trying to do this for years (some of them experts ;). I don't think these people are short sided, nor do I think they are looking for some new version of flintstone vitamins. It's about the controll of the population through newly formed woolly-beast-man hybrids! They have already experimented with sasquatch-chihuahua, and have come up with the great dane!
We are doing something incredibly dangerous and against mother nature, there is a reason they went extinct.
We should not bring back giant spiders or sharks the size of submarines or any other creature that mother nature has decided should go.
Like I don't have enough to worry about, now I'm going to pay my tax dollars to clone a creature that shouldn't exist anymore just so it can create a disease that kills millions of people and every year from that point on I'm going to have to get a flu shot to protect me from getting sick by something that should be extinct!!!
And I won't be able to afford the shot, cause health care sucks, cause we got no money, cause they took it to clone something from the ice age...
Anyone who thinks this is all Obama's fault just go screw yourselves right now before you get started with your non-sense, it's people like you who are really destroying the country.
@Avarage Guy
Exactly what amount of you tax dollars are going to pay for Russian and Japanese research?
Maybe the Russians and Japanise governments are using the Hundreds of Millions of dollars we are sending them each year in "Foreign Aid".
It is not really known if Man is the culprit behind the ice age megafauna extinction, it is but only one interpretation of the cause, it may have global temperature change, disease, etc. etc.
My personal thoughts are that if we are going to invest in reviving extinct species we should focus on the things that we know for sure that we were responsible for destroying, such as the Passenger Pigeon, the Carolina Parakeet, the Great Auk, Dodo Birds and so on.
And if it is wow factor you seek then revive the Giant Moa, whats not to love about an 18 foot tall Bird.
Let's just hope it's not angry.
The politically correct answer to extinctions is never that humans are the culprits. However, in every case humans arrived shortly before the extinctions. Colossochelys atlas, a giant 3 ton tortoise was one of the first to go extinct when early humans moved out of Africa into Asia some 2 million years ago. Modern humans do not have to directly kill an animal to cause it to go extinct. Wherever we go we bring our commensal animals (dogs, etc.).
Any 'woolly mammoth' clone will more likely be an Indian elephant with a few woolly mammoth genes inserted into its DNA. It will be a woolly Indian elephant with long tusks that it hasn't the faintest idea what to do with.
Sparky,
I would think that a revived Giant Moa would be good for kicks. :-)
"And if it is wow factor you seek then revive the Giant Moa, whats not to love about an 18 foot tall Bird."
Well the one thing that comes to mind is its droppings. You dis-like Sea Gulls and other birds for that now. Can you imagine a 18 foot long bird flying 100 foot in the air right over your car or new suit?
Did you notice this is actually non-denial denial ? "Genetic engineering may eventually produce a "hairy elephant" with mammoth-like characteristics." Exactly. Which for most of msnbc readers is the same thing as cloning a mammoth, even when technically it should be called something else.
Sure did, for some reason it reminds me of our current Congressional body.
With everything else happening in the world, this is something that is important? People need to quit living in their own world and wake up.
"Not in my lifetime"? Methinks he must have a really short life expectancy - look at what is happening on the genetic research frontier - gene splicing, recovering DNA from dinosaur cartiledge - I would be afraid to say "can't" about almost anything at this point. And besides, one of humanity's best features is the will to do when the odds are great.
When you stop and think about it, I mean really think about it, children are natural clones.
You take the DNA of one animal and splice it together with another and what do you get?
A clone that shares the characteristics of both; a hybrid of the two if you want to get technical.
So I must ask, if cloning is a natural process why is it so wrong for people to take the process into the labs and re-create it?
All they are doing is removing the chaos from what is natural cloning.
The scientists would take the DNA of one animal, the Woolly Mammoth and splice it together with that of another animal, an elephant, to create a hybrid of the two.
In the end they aren't really doing something that is so different from natural cloning.
Something to think about.
8ed: "When you stop and think about it, I mean really think about it, children are natural clones."
Since that is not the definition of cloning, you have no point. Cloning is creating a new indivdual with the ALL of the same DNA, not just a random half of it.