If you remember in 2017, it was predicted Resurrection of the Woolly Mammoth Could Begin in Two Years.
Well it's 2019, and now that it is two years later... and so they have, of course, accomplished nothing of the sort are working on it.
[...] researchers extracted cells from Yuka, a woolly mammoth mummy (Mammuthus primigenius) whose remains were discovered in the Siberian permafrost in 2011. Then, the scientists recovered the least-damaged nuclei (structures that contain genetic material) from each cell and popped the nuclei into mouse eggs.
At first, this maneuver "activated" the mammoth chromosomes, as several biological reactions that occur before cell division actually happened within the mouse cell. But these reactions soon came to a crashing halt, probably, in part, because the mammoth DNA was severely damaged after spending 28,000 years buried in permafrost, the researchers said.
Beth Shapiro, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not part of the study, commented:
at first, the cellular machinery did try to fix damaged DNA within the chromosomes and piece together the broken bits [...] "But [the egg] can only do so much, [...] When the nuclei are badly damaged, then it's just not possible to reconstitute this to what you would need to do to actually bring it back to life."
According to Shapiro:
"The results presented here clearly show us again the de facto impossibility to clone the mammoth by current NT [nuclear-transfer] technology," the researchers wrote in the study, published online March 11 in the journal Scientific Reports.
However that does not mean all is lost,
Other research groups are also trying to resurrect the mammoth, using different technology. George Church, a geneticist at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is heading the Harvard Woolly Mammoth Revival team, is taking one approach. He's using CRISPR — a tool that can edit DNA's bases, or letters — to insert woolly mammoth genes into the DNA of Asian elephants, which are closely related to the extinct animals.
All of this is not without the usual controversies, but it will certainly be an accomplishment should they succeed.
For those who are unaware, there is a nibble of truth to Pliny the Elder's assertion in A.D. 77 that Elephants hate mice, as it turns out Elephants will definitely avoid the heck out of mice in the wild.
Considering the close relationship of elephants and mammoths, perhaps mixing their bits together with mice is not the best approach?
Related Stories
Scientists led by George Church claim that they are about two years away from beginning a de-extinction of the woolly mammoth. They aim to produce a hybrid mammoth-elephant embryo with many spliced-in mammoth traits:
The woolly mammoth vanished from the Earth 4,000 years ago, but now scientists say they are on the brink of resurrecting the ancient beast in a revised form, through an ambitious feat of genetic engineering.
Speaking ahead of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston this week, the scientist leading the "de-extinction" effort said the Harvard team is just two years away from creating a hybrid embryo, in which mammoth traits would be programmed into an Asian elephant. "Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo," said Prof George Church. "Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. We're not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years."
The creature, sometimes referred to as a "mammophant", would be partly elephant, but with features such as small ears, subcutaneous fat, long shaggy hair and cold-adapted blood. The mammoth genes for these traits are spliced into the elephant DNA using the powerful gene-editing tool, Crispr. Until now, the team have stopped at the cell stage, but are now moving towards creating embryos – although, they said that it would be many years before any serious attempt at producing a living creature.
"We're working on ways to evaluate the impact of all these edits and basically trying to establish embryogenesis in the lab," said Church. Since starting the project in 2015 the researchers have increased the number of "edits" where mammoth DNA has been spliced into the elephant genome from 15 to 45. "We already know about ones to do with small ears, subcutaneous fat, hair and blood, but there are others that seem to be positively selected," he said.
Also at New Scientist and GenomeWeb.
Previously: Engineering the Perfect Baby
Woolly Mammoth Genome Sequenced
St. Paul Island Mammoths Died of Thirst 5,600 Years Ago
OBQ: [How Much] Should We Bioengineer Animals to Live in Our Damaged World?
Firm raises $15m to bring back woolly mammoth from extinction
Ten thousand years after woolly mammoths vanished from the face of the Earth, scientists are embarking on an ambitious project to bring the beasts back to the Arctic tundra. The prospect of recreating mammoths and returning them to the wild has been discussed – seriously at times – for more than a decade, but on Monday researchers announced fresh funding they believe could make their dream a reality.
The boost comes in the form of $15m (£11m) raised by the bioscience and genetics company Colossal, co-founded by Ben Lamm, a tech and software entrepreneur, and George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School who has pioneered new approaches to gene editing.
The scientists have set their initial sights on creating an elephant-mammoth hybrid by making embryos in the laboratory that carry mammoth DNA. The starting point for the project involves taking skin cells from Asian elephants, which are threatened with extinction, and reprogramming them into more versatile stem cells that carry mammoth DNA. The particular genes that are responsible for mammoth hair, insulating fat layers and other cold climate adaptions are identified by comparing mammoth genomes extracted from animals recovered from the permafrost with those from the related Asian elephants. These embryos would then be carried to term in a surrogate mother or potentially in an artificial womb. If all goes to plan – and the hurdles are far from trivial – the researchers hope to have their first set of calves in six years.
[...] The project is framed as an effort to help conserve Asian elephants by equipping them with traits that allow them to thrive in vast stretches of the Arctic known as the mammoth steppe. But the scientists also believe introducing herds of elephant-mammoth hybrids to the Arctic tundra may help restore the degraded habitat and combat some of the impacts of the climate crisis. For example, by knocking down trees, the beasts might help to restore the former Arctic grasslands.
Previously: Woolly Mammoth Genome Sequenced
Resurrection of the Woolly Mammoth Could Begin in Two Years
Analysis Supports Conservation of Existing Species Rather Than De-Extinction of Mammoths
Mammoth DNA Activates Briefly in Mouse Eggs
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday March 15 2019, @02:47PM (10 children)
You say that like it's a bad thing.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Friday March 15 2019, @03:43PM (5 children)
Depends on your view of how the dinosaurs came about. There are some who believe that part of the reason the world was destroyed by the flood is due to genetic manipulations. I.E. playing god with genetics and creating the dinosaurs. Along with all the rest of the horrible things they were doing to each other. Consider that according to the Bible we were created to be perfect beings, were something like 15ft tall or whatever. I.E. prime specimens of humans. Now, why would there be such weird amalgamations of humans like what are purported to be Neanderthals. Here's a hint, crazy evil people, playing with genetics to cross humans with animals.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday March 15 2019, @07:10PM (2 children)
I think I have a decent working knowledge of the text of the Bible.
I've heard that before. I don't see support for it in the text, at least not the "66 books" text protestants use. Would be interesting if they are talking about genetic manipulation done by technology. But then I would expect that level of technology to require sufficient infrastructure that we would find archeological evidence. A nut or bolt or washer or wire somewhere.
That appears to the the primary reason expressly stated in the text for the great flood.
Whether true or not, the text indicates (in the POV of the text) that we were created sinless. But within fewer chapters than you can count on one hand, we proved far, far from perfect.
Interesting. I don't know of support for the 15 foot tall in the 66 books. And I'm not familiar with other material, such as The Book of Enoch and other sources. I have considered reading Enoch, but haven't yet. (I've also considered giving the Quoran a complete read, but haven't.)
In the view of people purporting that, might they be thinking of non-humans playing with genetics? Just curious. I assume they are referencing first verses in Genesis 6.
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If we humans play with genetics in the 21st century, I'm sure nothing could ever possibly go wrong. It will be as safe as Windows, a 737 MAX, or Russia in the 90s using Excel to track inventory of nuclear missiles.
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(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:54AM (1 child)
I met her at Starbucks; despite being a well-read Muslim she was unfamiliar with the concept of The People Of The Book, that Book having three volumes: Torah, The New Testament and the Noble Quran.
"Isa" in Arabic, Islam regards him as a mortal prophet, but a divinely inspired one. It happens that the Quran discusses Isa quite a lot.
As a popular activity during Ramadan is to read the Noble Quran all the way through, I suggest it's not as weighty as the sixty-six books.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 18 2019, @01:50PM
Was she familiar what is to be done to "The People Of The Book"? It is somewhat different than "love your neighbor".
The Quran discusses "Isa" in a way that is mutually exclusive with how Christianity discusses Jesus.
The Quran is shorter.
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 15 2019, @10:02PM
I have already commented about this but the flood is fascinating. The shape of the continents today is one of a smaller sphere broken up by expansion [youtube.com] . A smaller sphere would spin faster to conserve momentum so people would more easily get to mathusalem-tier ages because there would be shorter days. And the bible says before the flood people lived way longer. The bible says there won't be another flood. So I like to think of something inside the earth producing lots of water as a byproduct and breaking it up, and slowing it down. The flood is also not an exclusive tale of the bible.
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(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:50AM
Consider that along with the Mammii, we've been dig up ancient viruses, some of them oddly quite large.
So far those virii are harmless to humans.
So far.
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(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday March 15 2019, @03:54PM (2 children)
If you are superstitious, you should recognize that all the good (and bad) of modern life is a result in meddling in god(s)' domain(s). Even something as simple as gardening.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 15 2019, @07:14PM
If Mammoth DNA is going to activate due to human meddling, I would rather it be in Easter Eggs than in Mouse Eggs.
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 15 2019, @10:04PM
You cannot meddle in a transcendent god's domain any more that donkey kong can get you a beer.
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(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday March 15 2019, @09:11PM
-squints-
Where exactly did they mention imaginary sky fairies? I need to know so I can get properly pissed off.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Friday March 15 2019, @03:09PM
Whatever else did they expect? That poor DNA, waits and waits for millennia, only to be put in a mouse?
It's like putting my AI to sleep() and it being woken up by systemd. Do you think I wouldn't scream myself to death? Wouldn't you?
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 15 2019, @03:23PM (2 children)
Their time would be better spent either working on creating synthetic [jcvi.org] embryos in general (not the kind created from existing stem cells), which could eventually be used to create an undamaged synthetic mammoth embryo. Or they could find and sequence more mammoth remains in order to complete more example genomes. This could allow for some genetic diversity if they ever attempt to build the full-fledged Pleistocene Park with live mammoths.
As for editing elephant embryos to make them more mammoth-like, that's another potentially disappointing shortcut, but seems more fruitful than the other approach.
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(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:58AM (1 child)
At one time, there was a vast variety of Pachyderms, not just the mammoths.
That had to look quite cool.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 16 2019, @01:02PM
I don't think that's on the menu:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park#Animals [wikipedia.org]
They are trying to recreate what it looked like 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday March 15 2019, @03:35PM (1 child)
How big was it?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:59AM
Hmm.... Beowulf Cluster
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @05:23PM
Am I the only one thinking about movies like "Night of the living dead" or "Pet cemetery" right now ?