Can you say "Jurassic Park"?

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

With cloning and gene manipulation it was about to happen sooner or later. I just wonder what would happen to the natural order of things if prehistoric animals were allowed to multiply in today's world.

I don't see how anything could possibly go wro-

[the_tyrant]

Japan+genetic technology=

[August]

I just last night watched the DVD boxed set of The Pacific with an all growed up Joe Mazello and here you are talking about Jurassic Park. Coincidence?

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by August

I just last night watched the DVD boxed set of The Pacific with an all growed up Joe Mazello and here you are talking about Jurassic Park. Coincidence?

That's odd, I thought you were watching the game?

[August]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

That's odd, I thought you were watching the game?

Post game mood improvement.

[TarJak]

Great idea and while they are at it lets get the Dodo back in flight.

[tater]

Originally Posted by August

I just last night watched the DVD boxed set of The Pacific with an all growed up Joe Mazello and here you are talking about Jurassic Park. Coincidence?

Holy crap. I didn't recognize him. Damn, that makes me feel old (I have friends who did effects for JP).

[Fish]

Nothing new!

[longam]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

I don't see how anything could possibly go wro-

As long as they eat all the blood sucking lawyers first, we'll be fine.

[Growler]

John Hammond: Don't worry, I'm not making the same mistakes again.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: No, you're making all new ones.

Originally Posted by longam

As long as they eat all the blood sucking lawyers first, we'll be fine.

I kinda like the idea of naming one president, we might actually get some stuff done in Washington if we do.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Does this sound to anyone else as though it wouldn't work without making serious genetic modifications to the mammoth? Wouldn't the mother's.... I mean parent 1's or 2's, or whatever's body reject the embryo? Well, not reject the embryo per se but end up toxifying or starving it? And that's assuming they even get it to a placental stage.

There's a reason why you can't make a chimp give birth to a human or killer whale to a bottlenose dolphin or what have you, and I don't mean some divine reason or the fact that it would be very....unnatural. Elephants and mammoths are pretty close from a genetic perspective, but they aren't that close. There's quite a bit of difficulty involved with implanting an embryo amongst members of the exact same species, and that's without having the zygote's chromosomal structure replaced by that of a species which has not been co-evolving for like, 10,000 years.

I must admit, I've never cloned an animal myself so I have to assume that these guys have some kind of workaround, but even so I can't help but get the feeling that somebody didn't think this through. Time will tell, but if their intent is to simply stick mammoth genes in an elephant cell, as the article puts it, I'm pretty dang sure this won't work.

[papa_smurf]

It will be possible, but will take a few generations to get a "pure" mammoth.

[Penguin]

Breeding simular races is practiced since a long time, for example between donkeys and horses.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

a species which has not been co-evolving for like, 10,000 years.

This is quite important. All the enivromental influences/illnesses that elephants have adapted to, are not in the mammoth's DNA. So I think the hybrid could be very vunerable to stuff like this.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Penguin

Breeding simular races is practiced since a long time, for example between donkeys and horses.

That's not even close to the same thing. Donkeys are horses in every genetic sense and their offspring are always sterile when they actually manage to survive pregnancy. Were one to cross a 10,000 year-old extinct species of equus with a horse, I would expect little result.

This is quite important. All the enivromental influences/illnesses that elephants have adapted to, are not in the mammoth's DNA. So I think the hybrid could be very vunerable to stuff like this.

My point, exactly. There's a good chance that the mother's immune system will generate antibodies, Killer-T's, and other protein-specific anitigens that will simply destroy the mammoth embryo, or eject it from the uterus. My knowledge of pregnancy dynamics is limited, however. I was hoping that we might have a natal physician in our midst who could explain how such a thing might work.