Nate Buchanan

Nate Buchanan

by Deleted user -
Number of replies: 2

Bringing the woolly mammoth back to life has only recently become a plausible reality. An advancement in genetic engineering called CRISPR is what has made this a possibility. CRISPR is a system that allows a geneticist to place individual genes that code for specific characteristics into the genome of living creatures. Another thing that has made the possibility of bringing the Woolly Mammoth back to life was the discovery of "buttercup", a female woolly mammoth's body that was uncovered and had blood that could be used to fill in the genome of the species. One of the biggest advantages to bringing back the Woolly Mammoth would be to help combat the defrosting of the permafrost in the Siberian plains. The Siberian plains contain more carbon than if we burn all the trees on Earth 3 times over. If the permafrost were to completely melt it would have serious implications on the entire Earth's health. I believe there could be disadvantages to bringing the species back to life. For instance, we do not know how it would affect the other species in the Siberian plains. The Mammoth's are so large that they will require an incredible amount of nutrients to survive. They could take away from the food that other species require to survive. I don't know if this would be possible for other species since the scientist are using the elephant's genome to help create the Woolly Mammoth. So, I think we would need a close relative to the species in order to bring it back. 

References:

https://www.history.com/news/wooly-mammoth-resurrection-cloning-genesis

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/woolly-mammoths-extinction-cloning-genetics/#close

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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Nate Buchanan

by Deleted user -
Hi Nate! I think your post about bringing the woolly mammoth back to life was informative. I also read about CRISPR and how that could be used to help bring the woolly mammoth back to life. I also read that they found some blood from Buttercup and how that could be used to help sequence the genome of the woolly mammoth. I agree that bringing woolly mammoths back to life could help slow the rate of global warming and decrease the melting of the permafrost. I think that bringing this species back to life would be very difficult because they have been so extinct for so long that they may have difficulty adapting to the climate and temperatures that have changed since they roamed the earth. I think that using the elephant to bring back the woolly mammoth was really neat, and I read some articles where other animals were very closely related to some extinct species, that they could bring those animals back too!

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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Nate Buchanan

by Deleted user -
Hey Nate! I think you did an excellent job of talking about the advantages of bringing the woolly mammoth back to life, to help with the permafrost. This could help the environment so much because if we can keep the permafrost frozen and stop the carbon from escaping the permafrost and causing global warming. Also, I agree with you and also wrote about the same disadvantages of the woolly mammoth being brought back to life. And I feel like it would have massive impacts on the environment like what you said about the different animals that might be affected by bringing such a big animal into the environment that needs more nutrients than the usual animals in the area. Lastly, I do agree with your statement that if we were to use this technology to bring back other species, we would have to use a very close relative of that species.

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