It's an incredibly long read, so I won't post it here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/magazine/the-mammoth-cometh.html)
Really interesting though.
Just do it already. Also jetpacks.
There was an interesting documentary about how there is also an effort to bring back the Passenger Pigeon from extinction. Hasnt been gone for as long obviously but it seems this field of de-extinction is growing.
Quote from: crazy canuck on February 27, 2014, 12:26:44 PM
There was an interesting documentary about how there is also an effort to bring back the Passenger Pigeon from extinction. Hasnt been gone for as long obviously but it seems this field of de-extinction is growing.
That's actually what the piece is mostly about.
Interesting read.
Seeing real live mammoths would be cool as hell. A silly bird? Pass.
When I first saw this thread I thought a giant Ice ball was coming toward Earth.
Quote from: crazy canuck on February 27, 2014, 12:26:44 PM
There was an interesting documentary about how there is also an effort to bring back the Passenger Pigeon from extinction. Hasnt been gone for as long obviously but it seems this field of de-extinction is growing.
Jetpacks for pigeons sounds retarded.
You will just have to work a bit harder for it.
Cloning passenger pigeons successfully will likely be impossible. They simply require to large a flock too make it practical. You can clone a few dozens Mammoths and let nature take it's course, will observing the herd and making sure to ensure genetic diversity. You can't do the same with passenger pigeons, you'd need to clone millions.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 27, 2014, 06:38:35 PM
Cloning passenger pigeons successfully will likely be impossible. They simply require to large a flock to make it practical.
Timmay, they will likely be able to recreate a passenger. Whether that will have any practical meaning given that the bird flocked in large numbers is another question.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 27, 2014, 06:38:35 PM
You can't do the same with passenger pigeons, you'd need to clone millions.
Why?
Quote from: derspiess on February 27, 2014, 01:08:13 PM
Seeing real live mammoths would be cool as hell. A silly bird? Pass.
Seeing flocks of them that are miles wide and hundreds of miles long taking half a day to pass would be a cool as hell sight.
Jeff Goldblum doesn't think this is a good idea.
Quote from: PRC on February 28, 2014, 01:13:34 AM
Quote from: derspiess on February 27, 2014, 01:08:13 PM
Seeing real live mammoths would be cool as hell. A silly bird? Pass.
Seeing flocks of them that are miles wide and hundreds of miles long taking half a day to pass would be a cool as hell sight.
I would think that many birds would put a strain on other species, eating more food, taking more nesting space. Probably as those pigeons declined other specie's numbers surged.
Quote from: KRonn on February 28, 2014, 08:18:27 AM
Quote from: PRC on February 28, 2014, 01:13:34 AM
Quote from: derspiess on February 27, 2014, 01:08:13 PM
Seeing real live mammoths would be cool as hell. A silly bird? Pass.
Seeing flocks of them that are miles wide and hundreds of miles long taking half a day to pass would be a cool as hell sight.
I would think that many birds would put a strain on other species, eating more food, taking more nesting space. Probably as those pigeons declined other specie's numbers surged.
I think the main issue isnt so much that other wild species filled that ecological niche but rather we took up that space and so much of what would have been their natural habitat has become urban.
The story told about passenger pigeons in 1491 is that Native Americans slaughtered them because they were competing for the same food.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 28, 2014, 12:51:16 PM
The story told about passenger pigeons in 1491 is that Native Americans slaughtered them because they were competing for the same food.
If the natives slaughtered them then they did a piss poor job since by the 19th century their numbers are estimated to have been 1-2 billion.
Quote from: crazy canuck on February 28, 2014, 12:54:01 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 28, 2014, 12:51:16 PM
The story told about passenger pigeons in 1491 is that Native Americans slaughtered them because they were competing for the same food.
If the natives slaughtered them then they did a piss poor job since by the 19th century their numbers are estimated to have been 1-2 billion.
Well yeah something really bad started happening to the natives right after 1491 that allowed the Pigeons to bounce back in a big way.
Quote from: Valmy on February 28, 2014, 12:58:19 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on February 28, 2014, 12:54:01 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 28, 2014, 12:51:16 PM
The story told about passenger pigeons in 1491 is that Native Americans slaughtered them because they were competing for the same food.
If the natives slaughtered them then they did a piss poor job since by the 19th century their numbers are estimated to have been 1-2 billion.
Well yeah something really bad started happening to the natives right after 1491 that allowed the Pigeons to bounce back in a big way.
Something bad happened yes. But the Passengers were always there in large numbers until railways allowed hunters to transport large amounts of the meat to market. It took killing on an industrial level to reduce their numbers.
Quote from: crazy canuck on February 28, 2014, 01:30:13 PM
Something bad happened yes. But the Passengers were always there in large numbers until railways allowed hunters to transport large amounts of the meat to market. It took killing on an industrial level to reduce their numbers.
Thanks for sharing your memories. :)
QuoteGreat Auk specialist John Wolley interviewed the two men who killed the last birds, and Ísleifsson described the act as follows:
The rocks were covered with blackbirds [referring to Guillemots] and there were the Geirfugles ... They walked slowly. Jón Brandsson crept up with his arms open. The bird that Jón got went into a corner but [mine] was going to the edge of the cliff. I caught it close to the edge – a precipice many fathoms deep. The black birds were flying off. I took him by the neck and he flapped his wings. He made no cry. I strangled him.
There is a soul-hollowing sadness in that simple passage.
They deserve to be brought back. They weren't ours to take away.
I prefer the stool pigeon.
Quote from: The Brain on March 01, 2014, 03:50:16 AM
I prefer the stool pigeon.
Ironically the phrase stool pigeon originates from the method used to hunt the Passenger.
Fuckin' metal! :punk:
These artificial wombs they're developing can be used for our clone armies! :menace:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2017/0216/Scientists-We-can-clone-a-woolly-mammoth.-But-should-we
Quote
Scientists: We can clone a woolly mammoth. But should we?
Gene editing technology may literally open up a shortcut to resurrecting the woolly mammoth, but some scientists argue doing so would be risky and unethical.
Charlie Wood
February 16, 2017 —This is not your parents' "Jurassic Park."
Harnessing the power of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool, a team of Harvard researchers is slowly coaxing woolly mammoth-like traits out of normal elephant cells. But recent claims that they're close to creating a hybrid embryo have raised questions regarding the ethics of the procedure.
The ethical issues range from questions of practicality – Should we risk impregnating an endangered elephant with an experimental embryo? – to an ethical Pandora's box: Would the ability to bring species back from the dead derail conservation efforts?
But geneticist George Church says he believes letting the research continue would produce the benefits that go beyond the chance to see an extinct creature, suggesting the reintroduction of the woolly mammoth might mitigate climate change.
Except, it wouldn't be a mammoth, exactly.
"Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo," said Dr. Church, reported the Guardian. "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 phrase "mammoth cloning" may conjure up images of scientists extracting amber-bound DNA and incubating it in frogs as in the 1993 film "Jurassic Park," but it means something quite different to Church.
Instead of re-creating an extinct organism, his team is trying to create a hybrid "mammophant." Starting with the woolly mammoth's closest living relative, the Asian elephant, Church uses the CRISPR precision gene editing tool to snip and splice in mammoth genes, granting mammoth-like characteristics such as a shaggy coat, extra fat, and cold-resistant blood.
"The list of edits affects things that contribute to the success of elephants in cold environments. We already know about ones to do with small ears, subcutaneous fat, hair, and blood," Church explained to New Scientist.
So far, with samples from a remarkably well-preserved 2013 find as a DNA guide, the team has accomplished 45 of these edits. If their goal were to perfectly re-create the mammoth genome, they'd still have thousands to go.
And they aren't the only team taking this alternative cloning approach. Researchers in Chile are also trying to engineer a dinosaur out of a chicken by rolling back certain genes.
Church's team says they're only a couple years away from the next step, making the edits in an elephant embryo and studying its viability. The researchers believe they could turn skin cells of the highly endangered Asian elephant into embryos using cloning techniques.
And that's the easy part.
Once they have a mammophant egg ready to go, they'd need a way to carry it to term. Ethics prevent using real Asian elephants as surrogate mothers because of their endangered status and high degree of intelligence, but Church has other plans.
"We hope to do the entire procedure ex-vivo," or outside a living body, he told The Guardian. "It would be unreasonable to put female reproduction at risk in an endangered species."
Some say the technology to grow a hybrid animal inside an artificial womb won't be possible this decade, but The Guardian reports that Church's lab is hard at work on the problem, already able to incubate a mouse embryo for ten days, about half of its gestation period.
Even if Church succeeds in overcoming all the technical hurdles, some wonder if the mammoth should be resurrected at all.
As Matthew Cobb, professor of zoology at the University of Manchester, told The Guardian: "The proposed 'de-extinction' of mammoths raises a massive ethical issue – the mammoth was not simply a set of genes, it was a social animal, as is the modern Asian elephant. What will happen when the elephant-mammoth hybrid is born? How will it be greeted by elephants?"
Church argues that the mammophant would join the fight against global warming, thus bringing concrete benefits to humans all over the planet.
"They keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in," said Church. "In the summer they knock down trees and help the grass grow."
While such behavior could help keep greenhouses gasses locked in the permafrost, we'd need to get pretty good at mammophant cloning to bring back enough of the beasts to populate Canada and Siberia. Plus, as is often the case with geoengineering schemes, the effects would be uncertain. Scientists aren't even sure whether the original loss of mammoths caused some climate change, or if the climate change killed the mammoths. In addition, there's no guarantee that the helpful stomping behaviors are genetic, instead of taught by long-vanished mammoth parents.
And climate may not be the only unintended consequence. Other researchers worry developing such Lazarus-technology would endanger current conservation efforts. "De-extinction just provides the ultimate 'out'," said wildlife biologist Stanley Temple in a BBC interview. "If you can always bring the species back later, it undermines the urgency about preventing extinctions."
Rather, we should focus on keeping the Asian elephant alive, paleobiologist and mammoth expert Tori Herridge wrote in a 2014 opinion piece for The Guardian.
"Sometimes the ice age world is so real to me that my throat aches and my eyes sting a little when I think about what we've lost, the animals we will never see," she wrote. "But here's the irony – if we feel like that about the mammoth, just think how our kids might feel about the elephant if we let it become extinct. We really ought to be focusing on that, and doing everything we can to stop it from happening."
I think it's pretty awful to bring back animals who can't be taught to communicate at length with mankind. (i.e., maybe neanderthals are OK) they'd just get enslaved and be forced to live in unnatural conditions. humans are animals and live in unnatural conditions, but this works for us because we understand what's going on and have created it for ourselves. this also works for domesticated animals because we made them ours.
bringing back wild animals and forcing them to live on earth is like taking elephants from the wildlife and throwing them in zoos. what purpose does it serve to exploit them like that? we're already forced to exploit tons of animals by "saving" them from extermination (again, for our benefit rather than theirs).
Quote from: CountDeMoney on February 28, 2014, 10:30:04 PM
QuoteGreat Auk specialist John Wolley interviewed the two men who killed the last birds, and Ísleifsson described the act as follows:
The rocks were covered with blackbirds [referring to Guillemots] and there were the Geirfugles ... They walked slowly. Jón Brandsson crept up with his arms open. The bird that Jón got went into a corner but [mine] was going to the edge of the cliff. I caught it close to the edge – a precipice many fathoms deep. The black birds were flying off. I took him by the neck and he flapped his wings. He made no cry. I strangled him.
There is a soul-hollowing sadness in that simple passage.
They deserve to be brought back. They weren't ours to take away.
Only species to be driven to extinction in the name of science. Yeah, science owe 'em one.
*makes note to self not to use the phrase "Fucking Metal"* Irredeemably tainted.
every species goes extinct for some reason or another. mankind is nature. mankind's development and domination of the planet is nature. I watched a documentary on elephants the other day and came to the conclusion that the extermination of wild species is a good thing for them, if things reach a point where they can no longer live on earth in their natural habitat.
some dude in the documentary talked about how the extinction of animal species "before their time" was a bad thing. what does that even mean? if they became extinct through (1) mankind's progress or (2) dying off in an ice age, what difference does it make for the individual member of that species? there's no going back on progress, and it's just going to get worse for wildlife.
Quote from: Ed Anger on February 16, 2017, 09:56:55 PM
*makes note to self not to use the phrase "Fucking Metal"* Irredeemably tainted.
At least he didn't say "wicked awesome!" this time.
Quote from: Eddie Teach on February 16, 2017, 11:50:13 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on February 16, 2017, 09:56:55 PM
*makes note to self not to use the phrase "Fucking Metal"* Irredeemably tainted.
At least he didn't say "wicked awesome!" this time.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fb.fssta.com%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F02%2Fkansas-city-star.vadapt.767.high.0.jpg&hash=b089f179046d7ec255f3bfc8dba61249c1e7cdc0)
DIAF
Man that was just uncalled for Tim.
I think we should bring back a few animals and learn how to do it and see what impacts it might have, just in case we ever need to do it someday for some reason.
Something as huge as a mammoth might be a bad idea for a first go though. Well and there is also the issue this animal has been extinct for thousands of years. An animal that became extinct last year might be a better idea.
Aren't we making 1000s of species every year go extinct from habitat loss? Seems to be a better idea to work on reducing or stopping that than trying to bring back the mammoth...
Quote from: Zanza on February 17, 2017, 11:59:57 AM
Aren't we making 1000s of species every year go extinct from habitat loss? Seems to be a better idea to work on reducing or stopping that than trying to bring back the mammoth...
Well one may in the service to the other. Bringing back extinct species that is, not necessarily the mammoth.
Quote from: Zanza on February 17, 2017, 11:59:57 AM
Aren't we making 1000s of species every year go extinct from habitat loss? Seems to be a better idea to work on reducing or stopping that
why?
Quote from: LaCroix on February 17, 2017, 12:08:30 PM
Quote from: Zanza on February 17, 2017, 11:59:57 AM
Aren't we making 1000s of species every year go extinct from habitat loss? Seems to be a better idea to work on reducing or stopping that
why?
Because it is potentially damaging to us both existentially and economically.
isn't "being damaged existentially" the price to pay for our civilizing? and some industries die, that's life.
Quote from: LaCroix on February 17, 2017, 01:55:13 PM
isn't "being damaged existentially" the price to pay for our civilizing? and some industries die, that's life.
Yes but earth is an industry that is too big to fail.
Quote from: Valmy on February 17, 2017, 11:52:00 AM
I think we should bring back a few animals and learn how to do it and see what impacts it might have, just in case we ever need to do it someday for some reason.
Something as huge as a mammoth might be a bad idea for a first go though. Well and there is also the issue this animal has been extinct for thousands of years. An animal that became extinct last year might be a better idea.
better start with something big, yet manageable. If you lose track of it, it's easy to hunt them down.
Maybe a sloth. They don't move very fast.
Quote from: Zanza on February 17, 2017, 11:59:57 AM
Aren't we making 1000s of species every year go extinct from habitat loss? Seems to be a better idea to work on reducing or stopping that than trying to bring back the mammoth...
That was mentioned in the article and strikes me as a rather tangential statement. Certainly we should do that, but the geneticists working on this can't be easily reallocated to become conservationists.
Quote from: Valmy on February 17, 2017, 11:52:00 AM
I think we should bring back a few animals and learn how to do it and see what impacts it might have, just in case we ever need to do it someday for some reason.
Something as huge as a mammoth might be a bad idea for a first go though. Well and there is also the issue this animal has been extinct for thousands of years. An animal that became extinct last year might be a better idea.
We should start with Tyrannasaurus Rex. Go big or go home.
Quote from: alfred russel on February 17, 2017, 07:37:02 PM
Quote from: Valmy on February 17, 2017, 11:52:00 AM
I think we should bring back a few animals and learn how to do it and see what impacts it might have, just in case we ever need to do it someday for some reason.
Something as huge as a mammoth might be a bad idea for a first go though. Well and there is also the issue this animal has been extinct for thousands of years. An animal that became extinct last year might be a better idea.
We should start with Tyrannasaurus Rex. Go big or go home.
Oh if only we could.
it seems cool to bring back a mammoth or whatever, but it wouldn't be. We have elephants after all. The coolness of carrier pigeons is diminished by the reality of having actual pigeons - pigeons hardy enough not to go extinct.
Had carrier pigeons not gone extinct, no one would go to the zoo to see them. Bringing them back would just be a novelty act.
First of all elephants are cool. Second of all Canada doesn't have any and if we do this soon the Yukon will be covered with herds of mammoths.
Quote from: Valmy on February 17, 2017, 07:43:53 PM
First of all elephants are cool. Second of all Canada doesn't have any and if we do this soon the Yukon will be covered with herds of mammoths.
Elephants are very cool. But I'd say two things:
-Current species are going extinct at an alarming pace because of habitat loss. Tossing in a new species is going to make that problem worse. You may just be trading an extinct species for an extant one.
-The species went extinct for a reason. Why would you think it could survive now?
I am obviously kidding :P
The whole point to bring back species is for a later time when habitat is recovered. Once we 3-D print all of our food and abandon the farms.
Fredo has a bias against hairy species.
Quote from: alfred russel on February 17, 2017, 07:52:04 PM
-The species went extinct for a reason. Why would you think it could survive now?
Humans protecting them instead of hunting them.
Birds are dinosaurs. No need to bring back T-Rex. It's covered.
Quote from: saskganesh on February 19, 2017, 09:47:17 AM
Birds are dinosaurs. No need to bring back T-Rex. It's covered.
you got to admit, a velociraptor is way cooler than a turkey. Well, the fake ones, at least. The real ones might be on the smallish side of things.
Quote from: alfred russel on February 17, 2017, 07:52:04 PM
Elephants are very cool. But I'd say two things:
-Current species are going extinct at an alarming pace because of habitat loss. Tossing in a new species is going to make that problem worse. You may just be trading an extinct species for an extant one.
-The species went extinct for a reason. Why would you think it could survive now?
Tossing in an old species might make the situation better. We don't know much about the ecological role of mammoths in boreal forests. Maybe they were doing something that was beneficial to the ecosystem as a whole, and bringing them back would actually help existing species.
if the planet survived without them, then they aren't necessary. I doubt a lot of animals are necessary
Quote from: LaCroix on February 20, 2017, 09:33:47 AM
if the planet survived without them, then they aren't necessary. I doubt a lot of animals are necessary
:huh: Planets survive with no life at all. Your assertion here is a vacuous truth.
Quote from: Queequeg on February 27, 2014, 11:58:45 AM
It's an incredibly long read, so I won't post it here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/magazine/the-mammoth-cometh.html)
Really interesting though.
Good. I need something to hunt with the 375.
Gun nut. :rolleyes:
Quote from: LaCroix on February 20, 2017, 09:33:47 AM
if the planet survived without them, then they aren't necessary. I doubt a lot of animals are necessary
the planet could survive without humans, ergo, we should do our best to kill all humans?