Woolly Mammoth

Woolly Mammoth

by Deleted user -
Number of replies: 5

            The movement for the resurrection of previously extinct species has been seeing a lot of progress lately. A reason for this progress is the development of the CRISPR/ Cas9 system and because of synthetic biology. CRISPR stands for, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and it enables scientists to easily edit the DNA of any genome. Scientists have come close to recreating the wooly mammoth that became extinct almost 4,000 years ago. Synthetic biology, in this case, includes splicing the genes of a wooly mammoth with those of an Asian elephant to produce a mammoth-elephant hybrid. I think people want to bring the mammoth back because of its beauty and the fact that they can say that it has been done. I think the attention that the woolly mammoth will get will take away from other animals that are being hunted, giving them time to restore their numbers. There could be a couple of disadvantages to bringing the woolly mammoth could be that the mammoth could be dangerous, or they could take over the resources of another animal that lives in the area, possibly rendering that species extinct. The reasoning behind picking the Asian elephant is because it shares over 99% of the DNA with the wooly mammoth. Scientists want to bring back this animal because of its majestic features and because it can protect the Asian elephant from further exploitation from hunters. In addition, the woolly mammoths would start to graze on the Arctic tundra which would expose the earth underneath to cold air, keeping it frozen longer and combatting climate change.

 

Sources:

Chang, D., Knapp, M., Enk, J., Lippold, S., Kircher, M., Lister, A., … Shapiro, B. (2017, March 22). The evolutionary and phylogeographic history of woolly mammoths: a comprehensive mitogenomic analysis. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/srep44585

Morse, F. (2015, June 11). Why scientists want to bring back woolly mammoths. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/33062252/why-scientists-want-to-bring-back-woolly-mammoths

Pruitt, S. (2019, January 22). Are Scientists on the Verge of Resurrecting the Woolly Mammoth? Retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/wooly-mammoth-resurrection-cloning-genesis

Rothschild, L. J. (2019, March 13). Seven reasons we shouldn't bring extinct animals back to life. Retrieved from https://qz.com/1566083/we-shouldnt-bring-back-extinct-animals-like-the-woolly-mammoth/Synthetic Biology Explained. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://archive.bio.org/articles/synthetic-biology-explained


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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Woolly Mammoth

by Deleted user -
Hey Kamryn, your post has a lot of upside to it. I like the point you made about how bringing back the Mammoth could slow down hunting and poaching of other animals that might be endangered. I had not looked at it from that standpoint but I do think that has some truth to it. I didn’t know that the Asian Elephant and the Woolly Mammoth had such similar DNA structure. I know a lot of people posting have talked about the disadvantages being the extinction of other species and that these animals could be unpredictable in how they act. It’s interesting to think that if we could bring them back if we would set them straight off into the wild, or if scientists would keep them enclosed for a certain amount of time to see how they would act. I think if they did this then they would have a better understanding on if they should keep going with bringing back other animals in the future.

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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Woolly Mammoth

by Deleted user -
I agree with you. I think that a big reason that people want to bring back the wooly mammoth is for the excitement and the beauty of it. It is cutting edge research and that makes it really exciting to bring back an animal that, like you said, died around 4,000 years ago. And I also wrote about how the wooly mammoth could take away resources from other animals that are already in the Siberian Steppes. We don’t actually know what will happen when we reintroduce this new hybrid species back into the world. This could be a disaster or it could the next way to save species that are going extinct!

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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Woolly Mammoth

by Deleted user -
Hey Kam,
I liked how you talked about how the mammoth could possibly help with climate change. I also talked about that and how they would graze on the grass in the tundra which exposes the ground to cooler air and lowers the overall temperature. I also mentioned the Asian elephant and how the wooly mammoth's DNA is over 99% similar to the Asian elephants. I also like the point you brought up that people want to bring back the wooly mammoth so they can say it has been done. This is probably so relevant because people may want to overall help, but they are probably thinking about the fame it could bring on their name. I also mentioned how if we brought the wooly mammoth back, that the focus on other animals struggling to survive because of human interactions would be taken away and the main focus would be on the wooly mammoth. That in itself could be harmful for the environment as a whole because the wooly mammoth has been gone for thousandths of years and our environment has changed since then.

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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Woolly Mammoth

by Deleted user -
Hey Kamryn! I agree with your comment that many people might want to bring back the woolly mammoth just to be able to see it and say it has been done. If that is the case, is it really worth it? There is the possibility that the reintroduction of the species could help combat climate change, but couldn’t other animals do the same thing? There are also so many unknowns. Like you mentioned, it isn’t possible to know how the woolly mammoth would interact with other species. Despite these concerns, I think the idea of resurrecting an extinct species is too ground-breaking for scientists to dismiss.

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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Woolly Mammoth

by Deleted user -
Hey Kam ,
I absolutely loved your post , it had a lot of positive outcomes in it. I really like the point you made about the wooly mammoth causing climate change which also would keep it frozen longer and that it may cause elimination of resources for other animals. With this specific forum I enjoyed tremendously , I really enjoyed reading yours. Also, I agreed with the fact of people wanted to bring the Wooly Mammoth back because of their beauty and majestic features. Before working on this forum I really didn't know much about CRISPR gene splicing system. What I didn't know was that until I researched it was that scientists came close to to recreating one 4,ooo years ago.

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