PrintJanuary 15, 2011
Mammoth cloning breakthrough could save endangered species
Could we visit a real ‘Jurassic Park’ in as little as four years? When Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster was released in 1993 who would have thought that real scientists could resurrect a long extinct species before the legendary sci-fi fantasy reached its silver anniversary? Even as ‘Jurassic Park’ was being produced scientists were extracting cells from the tissue of woolly mammoths found in the Siberian permafrost, however their attempts ended in failure because of the extensive damage caused by the extreme cold.
The UK Telegraph reports that a new breakthrough developed two years ago by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama at the Riken Center of Developmental Biology has given new life to the mammoth cloning project. Dr. Wakayama successfully cloned a mouse from the nuclei of donor cells extracted from another mouse which had been frozen for a period of 16 years.
Using Wakayama’s new technique as a springboard, Professor Akira Iritani at Kyoto University has found new life for his project. Iritani said “Now the technical problems have been overcome, all we need is a good sample of soft tissue from a frozen mammoth.” Professor Iritani will use his colleague’s breakthrough technique to identify the nuclei of healthy cells. Once viable cells are located and extracted the nuclei will be inserted into the egg cells of an African elephant.
Professor Iritani said he estimates that another two years will be needed before the elephant can be impregnated, followed by the approximately 600-day gestation period.He has announced plans to travel to Siberia in the summer to search for mammoths in the permafrost and to recover a sample of skin or tissue that can be as small as 3cm square. If he is unsuccessful, the professor said, he will ask Russian scientists to provide a sample from one of their finds.“The success rate in the cloning of cattle was poor until recently but now stands at about 30 per cent,” he said. “I think we have a reasonable chance of success and a healthy mammoth could be born in four or five years.
It may not really be ‘Jurassic Park’ because the woolly mammoth has only been extinct for approximately 5,000 years, but it does offer new hope in the battle to save endangered species like the lowland gorilla and the rhinoceros. If at some time in the future scientists find a way to extract dinosaur DNA from mosquitos trapped in amber combined with frog DNA we could be in big trouble.
The downside of this new scientific breakthrough would be its application to species which have proved to be destructive to mankind. Imagine using this new technique to halt the extinction of liberalism (AKA progressivism, socialism, communism), which is currently experiencing the adverse effects of natural selection. Hmmmm, what about those rumors of a collaboration effort between Nancy Pelosi and Steven Spielberg. Coming soon ‘Democrat Park’ a terrifying land where liberals run wild and feed off the flesh of the productive, gaps in the progressive DNA strand could be filled by using RINO cells.
January 15, 2010
