Gasconade County Republican

Cloning a Wooly Mammoth?

Thursday, 02 February 2012 07:22 Jennifer MacDonald

By Brittni Cebulak
Recently, some researchers have said that Wooly Mammoths—the shaggy haired, long ago extinct cousin of the modern day elephant—could “be easier to clone than one might think.” No, this is not something out of a Jurassic Park movie—these speculations are being made in real life. Scientists from Russia and Japan have said that they could achieve the feat in as little as five years; however, some researches and skeptics claim that the task would span across the time of decades, not just a few years.

Woolly Mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) are said to have wandered the planet for over a million years, populating the Earth in areas ranging from Europe, Asia, and North America. They allegedly vanished from Siberia about 10,000 years ago, but dwarf mammoths survived on “Wrangel Island” in the Arctic Ocean until 3,700 years ago.
Scientists “regularly conduct research on the DNA” of Wooly Mammoths, which is extracted from the tusks, bones, and teeth of various Mammoth carcasses preserved from the severe cold of their former environment. Due to the fact that scientists have all of this genetic material on hand, there is a greater possibility that Mammoths could be cloned one day.

"Recreating extinct organisms is definitely within reason," researcher Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, told LiveScience. "It will be possible."

However, Poinar also noted that it may take 20 to 50 years—if the cloning is possible at all.
Believe it or not, extinct animals have been “resurrected before”—but only briefly. For example, scientists in Spain cloned a Pyrenean Ibex, a species of wild goat that went extinct in 2000. Scientists had injected the DNA of the extinct goat into domestic goat eggs that had been emptied of their existing genetic materials. The extinct goat was born from the domestic goat, but soon died shortly after its birth because of lung defects. Scientists say that such abnormalities are common in cloning, and there are many factors that can affect the development of a cloned species.
With this previous information in mind, what can one expect from a Wooly Mammoth cloning, which was a massive creature—not a small goat? Is this experiment doomed before it even starts? Also, the question comes into play of whether or not it is morally right for scientists to attempt to “play God” and resurrect a beast that has been dead and gone for thousands of years. Where is the humanity in creating something unnaturally that is more than like destined to become extinct for a second time—after only existing once more for a few hours/days? Could this be considered as a form of “animal” abuse? In addition, one could argue that scientists should be spending their time finding cures for various cancers and other diseases—not playing with the genetics of frozen corpses that are thousands of years old. However, if the research and science behind this experiment proves to be accurate and successful, it will not matter what people thought of the ordeal—they might very well be going to their local zoo to see a Wooly Mammoth with their families.
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/09/woolly-mammoths-could-be-cloned-someday-scientist-says-2117213240/