Associated Press - Thursday, May 30, 2013

Russian scientists find mammoth carcass with liquid blood, raising hopes for cloning



By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

MOSCOW - A perfectly preserved woolly mammoth carcass with liquid blood has been found on a remote Arctic island, fueling hopes of cloning the Ice Age animal, Russian scientists said Thursday.

The carcass was in such good shape because its lower part was stuck in pure ice, said Semyon Grigoryev, the head of the Mammoth Museum, who led the expedition into the Lyakhovsky Islands off the Siberian coast.

"The blood is very dark, it was found in ice cavities bellow the belly and when we broke these cavities with a poll pick, the blood came running out," he said in a statement released by the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, which sent the team.

Wooly mammoths are thought to have died out around 10,000 years ago, although scientists think small groups of them lived longer in Alaska and on islands off Siberia.

Scientists have deciphered much of the woolly mammoth's genetic code from their hair, and some believe it's possible to clone them if living cells are found

Grigoryev said the find could provide the necessary material. The blood of mammoths appeared not to freeze in extreme temperatures, likely keeping mammoths warm, he said.

The temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to - 10 degrees Celsius (14 to 19 degrees Fahrenheit.)

The researchers collected the samples of the animal's blood in tubes with a special preservative agent. They were sent to Yakutsk for bacterial examination in order to spot potentially dangerous infections.

The carcass' muscle tissue was also in perfect condition.

"The fragments of muscle tissues, which we've found out of the body, have a natural red color of fresh meat," Grigoryev said.

Up to 4 meters (13 feet) in height and 10 tons in weight, mammoths roamed across huge areas between Great Britain and North America and were driven to extinction by humans and the changing climate.

The problem I see, though, is that there is just one member of the species. That means that all of the clones will be either male or female.

If they wish for the species to reproduce on its own, they would either need to find another Wooly Mammoth of the opposite gender, or figure out a way to manipulate the genes to create a member of the opposite gender.

---

In a discussion I am having elsewhere, someone asked if it would be ethical for us to bring back this species. They asked, "But if we do bring them back, what then?"

I would like to carry over that discussion here.

My response was: "Then we have another wonderful animal species!"

They replied: "If we do do we keep a few for shits and giggles or a lot and release to wild? Or are they just for zoos? And if just for us! Is that ethical?"

My reply: "You might as well ask that about every other animal species on Earth."

My feeling is: That's what we humans do. We don't ask *IF* we should explore the oceans or the stars, or *IF* we should develop medicines that will extend our lives, or *IF* we should split the atom. If we can do it, it's in our nature to do it. I don't see that as bad, though. It's all a part of science.

How do you feel? Is it ethical to bring back extinct species? Should we do it or not do it, and why?

They became extinct naturally. Leave it that way.
We need to stop unnaturally wiping out the species we already have, first.

I don't see it as unethical. Dangerous maybe, but a cloned mammoth is not going to run around in the wild. He'd live a confined life. Dolly the sheep opened that door.

The Japanese and Russians have been working on this for awhile.

http://phys.org/news/2011-12-japan-russ ... mmoth.html

dolly had fertility problems, right? cloning moves the biological clock forward.

I see a lot of potential problems. As kathy said, one (or two) being created and may be kept confined. To what end? On display at a zoo? I don't see that as being a good thing.

If they, or any other extinct species, are released into the wild then you have a huge disruption of the eco-system and food chain. They could potentially wipe out other species. The current system has evolved to be in balance, except the times that man has interfered. OTOH, perhaps nature would eventually balance it again.

Exploring space or the deepest part of the oceans is one thing and as far as I can see, does no harm to other species, so I don't see a comparison there. If they were to clone a huge sea creature to introduce into the ocean, I would be against that too.

Space and oceans are places. Mammoths are living beings and I don't consider "bringing them back to life" as exploration.

What Roseanne said.

Dolly had six lambs and died somewhat early of lung cancer. There are other cloned sheep out there in captivity. I tried to find some info about her lambs, but I haven't been able to.

I don't think they will clone enough mammoths to run wild and upset the balance of nature.

You guys just don't have any background info like good ole Jab.
The cloning is already a done deal and is financed by the GOP.
The mammoth is gonna be their new mascot.
Remember, you heard it here first.

Can't agree with you guys here.

I can't see any ethical problem with cloning a mammoth, or any other species for that matter, particularly when there's at least some evidence that humans were involved in their extinction.

We need to stop unnaturally wiping out the species we already have, first.
C'mon Oskar, you aren't the "we can only do one thing" type normally. Nothing about cloning precludes the attempt to stop current extinctions. In fact, cloning technology may be one way to prevent extinctions.

but a cloned mammoth is not going to run around in the wild. He'd live a confined life.
Not necessarily. If you can clone one you can clone more. In a free-range zoo type situation they could effectively be "running around in the wild". Of course, it would have to be a pretty big zoo.

To what end? On display at a zoo? I don't see that as being a good thing.
Maybe not, but its a better thing than extinction. Being displayed in zoos might well be the only hope for quite a few currently threatened species. Orangutans and tigers come to mind.

If they, or any other extinct species, are released into the wild then you have a huge disruption of the eco-system and food chain. They could potentially wipe out other species. The current system has evolved to be in balance, except the times that man has interfered. OTOH, perhaps nature would eventually balance it again.
That doesn't follow at all, particularly when they are relatively recent extinctions and when human activities were at least partly a cause of that extinction. The truth is that the "current system" ISN'T in "balance" at all. Human activity has thrown it way out of "balance". That's the reason so many species are currently under threat of extinction.

Mammoths are living beings and I don't consider "bringing them back to life" as exploration.
Maybe not "exploration", but certainly "investigation". Personally, I'm all in favour of studying living things.

LAMO! Good one.

Maybe not "exploration", but certainly "investigation". Personally, I'm all in favour of studying living things.

So would you be in favor of them cloning ancient man and studying him? Would we keep him/her in a zoo to be gawked at or let him/her loose in society to stumble around trying to orient him/herself to modern things and/or diseases? Or is it just animals that you have no problem bringing back to life only to be studied?

What about bringing anything back to life that might ultimately suffer (as Dolly did) and die? Does that possibility not bother you?

IMO we have enough almost extinct animals that need to be studied, nurtured and maintained without adding an unknown into the mix.

C'mon Oskar, you aren't the "we can only do one thing" type normally. Nothing about cloning precludes the attempt to stop current extinctions. In fact, cloning technology may be one way to prevent extinctions.

Except everyone is competing for the one resource that makes a difference in our world: money.

So would you be in favor of them cloning ancient man and studying him?
Depends on what kind of "ancient man" you are talking about. Humans aren't extinct.

Would we keep him/her in a zoo to be gawked at or let him/her loose in society to stumble around trying to orient him/herself to modern things and/or diseases?
If a human was cloned it would be a human, with all the legal and moral rights of any other human. As for "studying" them. Why not? I have studied humans all my life.

Or is it just animals that you have no problem bringing back to life [u]only to be studied? [/u]
I would bring mammoths back to life because they were magnificent. Being able to study them is just a bonus.

Except everyone is competing for the one resource that makes a difference in our world: money.
True. But are you assuming that money spent on cloning would somehow automatically go to helping prevent the extinction of other species? Its not a one or the other game.

Everyone and everything who lives eventually dies. Dolly had six lambs and then died of lung cancer in middle age. We don't know that she suffered. At least, I don't know that.

One of the most disturbing cases I had in the hospital was a new mother in her 30s. She was a police offer who was very, very upset that she just gave birth to someone who will ultimately die. I talked to the ob and said I thought she needed antidepressants and outpatient therapy ASAP. She was married and hubby was supportive and aware of the situation, but without him I would have been hesitant to let the baby go home with her.

I'm sure the hope would be to bring back more than one or two for a zoo. I'm sure people would like to reintroduce them into the Arctic wild as herds, much as the California Condor was saved from extinction -- first with a few in a zoo, and later reintroduced to the wild.


Actually, they probably did not become extinct naturally. It is believed that we humans hunted them to extinction.

This is from the Discovery Channel:

---

Discovery Channel

How Did the Mammoths Go Extinct?

- The last known mammoths died out quickly toward the end of the last ice age.

- Disease or humans may have wiped out the last mammoths; climate change probably did not.

- At least a few hardy individuals were still hanging on as late as 1700 B.C.

The last known population of woolly mammoths, roaming a remote Arctic island long after humans invented writing, were wiped out quickly, reports a study released Wednesday.

The culprit might have been disease, humans or a catastrophic weather event, but was almost certainly not climate change, suggests the study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Exactly why a majority of the huge tuskers that once strode in large herds across Eurasia and north America died out toward the end of the last ice age has generated fiery debate.

Some experts hold that mammoths were hunted to extinction beginning some 10,000 years ago by the species that was to become the planet's dominant predator -- humans.

I stand corrected.

I give up. What ever will happen, will happen and nothing I think or believe will change that.

So would you be in favor of them cloning ancient man and studying him? Would we keep him/her in a zoo to be gawked at or let him/her loose in society to stumble around trying to orient him/herself to modern things and/or diseases?

Maybe it's already happened. It would explain the sudden advent and neolithic orientation of the Tea Party....maybe they just spilled a bit of food colouring into John Boehner's primordial soup.

There are a lot of good arguments both for and against bringing back extinct species especially if, as some point, they are to be reintroduced to the wild. Mammoths, for example, may be one method of resolving polar bears dwindling food supply and hunting area. At the same time, though, what would they do to the grazing areas of the caribou and musk ox of the north?

As I said in our DeExtinction, anyone? thread a couple of months ago, I'm on the fence over this issue ~ altho all the pros and cons posted to-date have validity, I confess I'm pulled by my deep belief that humanity as a whole are typically slow learners ~ if we humans played a significant role in the extinction, I don't have much faith that things would be different this time around ~

Sooz

I think humans role would be a bit different this time, Sooz. I don't expect the cave guys have any idea what they were doing as far as extinction goes. They were feeding their families and probably had no concept of there just being no more mammoths. In fact, it may well have been a case, at the time, of the mammoths going or the humans going.

Perhaps 10,000 years from now, some advanced species will clone humans and bring us back from extinction.

What could possibly go wrong?

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, if we took that as a guide for action, or more precisely inaction, we'd never do anything.

i like the idea of de-extinction. we have extinguished plenty of species. bringing them back seems reasonable to me.

That's all I've been saying Macro. I wasn't suggesting we clone a T-Rex.