Do you think science will ever bring back the Whoolly Mammoth from extinction?

Question

Additional Details

To my knowledge, they haven't recovered any dinosaur dna that would come close enough to being able to clone them. However, several intact Mammoths have been found frozen in ice that could provide good mammoth DNA for cloning.

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

There's a saying (I don't know the author) that as far as technology and science go, man will do things because he can, not because he should. So I guess that at some point, somebody will try... whether they would succeed is another matter. If you ask me, it's not likely in the near future.

Let's consider some facts:

So far (see source 1 below), the so-called "antediluvian" DNA sequences (older than about one million years) have been impossible to reproduce.
The woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) are much younger; they lived during the Pleistocene (1.6 million to about 10,000 years ago), and indeed, DNA sequences have been recovered from remains of these organisms. However, most of that DNA consists of short truncated sequences.

A recent study (2005 - source 2) opened the door to the reconstruction of the entire mammoth DNA. If you google "paleogenomics", you'll find updated information about this new research field.
This leads to your question, would it be possible to clone these animals once all of their genome is known?
Instead of paraphrasing, I'll quote a fragment from a 2006 article by Hofreiter & Lister (Current Biology 16):

"However, all these ideas are shattered by the reality of
ancient DNA preservation. Both cloning and fertilization would
require intact cells, and even in the best preserved mammoths from permafrost DNA or proteins are highly fragmented. Moreover, the fact that not a single but
thousands of genes would need to be exchanged, in combination with the long generation time of elephants, makes the idea of creating a transgenic elephant seem a dubious proposal. Most likely, mammoths will remain gone
forever."

Source(s):

(1) http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/adna/PDF/Hofr…
(2) http://www-ab.informatik.uni-tuebingen.d…

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

That was a pretty good answer. Thanks for the info.

Answer 2

no

Answer 3

no, but maybe the woolly one

Answer 4

Anything is possible with today science. Then they could also bring back dinosaurs and eat us all. Scary huh???

Answer 5

Why? So it can get stuck in a zoo? And are you going to bring back just one? Or males and females, so they can reproduce.

The critical parameter in bringing back an extinct animal is providing habitat. Is there habitat for mammoths?

Answer 6

I hope not. I saw a documentary once on this park where they brought back dinosaurs from the jurassic age. It did not turn out well. It was in a three part series.

Answer 7

maybe if they find preserved DNA from the wooly mammoth, they can fertiliza an egg, put the egg in a regular elephant's uterus, and then let her have the baby, which would be like a wooly mammoth...

but this will probaly take about a couple 100 years or so, since it's very uncommon they'll find the DNA...unless a mosquito was sucking a wooly mamoths blood and was preserved with it's blood still inside the mosquito...

Answer 8

I hope so, I'd pay to go and see the Mammoth! I think it'd be cool if they brought back dinosaurs or something too, but I don't think they can.

Answer 9

they could extract DNA from a frozen one but it would be damaged and would have put back togeather then they could clone it. There is a reason that wully mammoths went extinct. cause they can't survive any more survival of the fittest. we the fricken DNA they have found perfectly perserved whole mamoths undertons of ice but it would still be damaged. but could be peaced togeather cloned it wouldn't take hundreds of years. maybe 20 -30 YEARS