One of the best lines from the Sixties: bring back Orange Sunshine. I want to be God again.
Jerry Falwell Jr: that's so disrespectful and blasphemous!
You obviously never dropped acid, Incredibly Boring Person.
Scientists are getting Divine again about resurrection of the Wooly Mammoth. (Phys.org: A mammoth task—how do we decide which species to resurrect?)
Before embarking on this deeply-spiritual sojourn, we need a brief review of Animal Algebra in Genetics.
A - the elephant genome
B - the mammoth genome
C - matching elements between A and B
D - parts in elephant genome which differ from mammoth
E - parts of mammoth genome which differ from elephant
To truly replicate a living Wooly Mammoth, all of D, the elephant genome which is different, needs to be replaced by E, the mammoth genome which is different, in C, the parts of the genomes which are the same.
That sort-of algebra needs to be precise or whatever gets created based on genetic modification of the elephant's DNA will not be a Wooly Mammoth. It may even look or act like one but it's not the real thing.
Ed: you're better off with the Orange Sunshine if you want to be God?
Much better. It's all an Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, after all.
The resurrection of vanished species - through cutting-edge technologies such as gene-editing - should be targeted towards recently extinct species rather than ancient ones, according to a leading University of Otago conservation biologist.
In a guest editorial newly published online in the journal Functional Ecology, Professor Philip Seddon of the University's Department of Zoology suggests that long-gone species such as the woolly mammoth would not be the best focus for de-extinction efforts.
Professor Seddon says the prospect of resurrecting species through cloning or genetic reconstruction through tools such as CRISPR gene-editing has caught the imagination of scientists and the public alike.
"However, while the idea of resurrecting mammoths, for example, might hold a 'wow-factor' appeal, efforts would likely be better directed instead towards species where the conservation benefits are clearer.
- PO
Ed: this scientist is not a fan of ooh wow resurrection
Nope
Maybe the best way to conserve animals is if we prevent their extinction rather than trying to be TV spectacular like Carl Sagan with meaningless sideshow stunts.
"Second, and perhaps most importantly, extinction of any species marks a significant threshold that once crossed, cannot be fully reversed, despite the apparent promise of powerful new technologies.
"Our primary conservation objective must therefore be, as it always has been, avoiding species loss, and one the most significant contributions to be made by 'de-extinction technology' might well be to prevent extinctions in the first place."
- PO
Ed: whoa, he really hates it!
That he does. So do we.
Jerry Falwell Jr: that's so disrespectful and blasphemous!
You obviously never dropped acid, Incredibly Boring Person.
Scientists are getting Divine again about resurrection of the Wooly Mammoth. (Phys.org: A mammoth task—how do we decide which species to resurrect?)
Before embarking on this deeply-spiritual sojourn, we need a brief review of Animal Algebra in Genetics.
A - the elephant genome
B - the mammoth genome
C - matching elements between A and B
D - parts in elephant genome which differ from mammoth
E - parts of mammoth genome which differ from elephant
To truly replicate a living Wooly Mammoth, all of D, the elephant genome which is different, needs to be replaced by E, the mammoth genome which is different, in C, the parts of the genomes which are the same.
That sort-of algebra needs to be precise or whatever gets created based on genetic modification of the elephant's DNA will not be a Wooly Mammoth. It may even look or act like one but it's not the real thing.
Ed: you're better off with the Orange Sunshine if you want to be God?
Much better. It's all an Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, after all.
The resurrection of vanished species - through cutting-edge technologies such as gene-editing - should be targeted towards recently extinct species rather than ancient ones, according to a leading University of Otago conservation biologist.
In a guest editorial newly published online in the journal Functional Ecology, Professor Philip Seddon of the University's Department of Zoology suggests that long-gone species such as the woolly mammoth would not be the best focus for de-extinction efforts.
Professor Seddon says the prospect of resurrecting species through cloning or genetic reconstruction through tools such as CRISPR gene-editing has caught the imagination of scientists and the public alike.
"However, while the idea of resurrecting mammoths, for example, might hold a 'wow-factor' appeal, efforts would likely be better directed instead towards species where the conservation benefits are clearer.
- PO
Ed: this scientist is not a fan of ooh wow resurrection
Nope
Maybe the best way to conserve animals is if we prevent their extinction rather than trying to be TV spectacular like Carl Sagan with meaningless sideshow stunts.
"Second, and perhaps most importantly, extinction of any species marks a significant threshold that once crossed, cannot be fully reversed, despite the apparent promise of powerful new technologies.
"Our primary conservation objective must therefore be, as it always has been, avoiding species loss, and one the most significant contributions to be made by 'de-extinction technology' might well be to prevent extinctions in the first place."
- PO
Ed: whoa, he really hates it!
That he does. So do we.
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