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Frozen hair gives up first mammoth genome

newscientist.com — Tufts of frozen woolly mammoth hair have yielded a rough draft of its genome. It's the most successful attempt to sequence the DNA of an extinct ancient animal to date, and although we won't see resurrected mammoths grazing the tundra anytime soon, it could give us a peek into the reasons for their extinction.

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  • seattlegirluw, on 11/19/2008, -0/+22Sweet! Now they just have to cross-breed with a potbellied pig and I'll have an appropriately sized woolly mammoth of my very own! (I'll name him Harry)
    • Devine122, on 11/20/2008, -5/+1Why would they choose a pig over, say, an elephant?
      • Medicamusic, on 11/20/2008, -0/+8"appropriately sized woolly mammoth"

        dont just see; read.
    • dagnome1984, on 11/20/2008, -0/+5I could go for some woolly mammoth bacon.
    • induren, on 11/20/2008, -0/+2That is just a pure awesome thought.
  • truthproduct, on 11/19/2008, -0/+11Damned super-scientists playing god like god plays dice!
  • gullyben, on 11/19/2008, -0/+19God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs...
  • manzplan, on 11/20/2008, -1/+3great!!! just in time for Global warming and melting of the Polar Ice caps making life hard for Polar Bears and other animals.. now we have to throw Wooly Mammoths into the mix!
    • FolkTheory, on 11/20/2008, -0/+1we can always shave them!!
      • davdev, on 11/20/2008, -0/+1Wouldn't a shaved Mammoth just be an elephant?
  • iamamaniac, on 11/20/2008, -3/+0Uniquely mammoth DNA sequences into the genome of the modern day .
  • amheidt, on 11/20/2008, -2/+3I heard about this in my bio class before I saw it on Digg :(
    • Medicamusic, on 11/20/2008, -0/+2Your teacher submitted it to digg during his break
    • hfactor, on 11/20/2008, -0/+1And this makes you sad because?
  • Mokshaguy390, on 11/20/2008, -0/+7Actual Woolly Mammoths would change the world as we know it.

    A decade from now on Digg:
    And you thought your job was bad? (pic)



    Yup. Science truly astounds me.
  • palehorse864, on 11/20/2008, -0/+2*examines results*
    The wooly mammoth, as we expected, is a subspecies of....

    Frog? The heck?
  • teh_spazz, on 11/20/2008, -2/+2http://www.thespazz.net/linked/mammoth.png

    Mammoth's huh?
  • Regulator980, on 11/20/2008, -0/+1Why settle for Wooley Mammoth hair, when we have a baby mammoth from which to extract DNA?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sbf0-_OfYY

    Surely a 10,000 year old specimen would be much easier to work with.
  • sdellboy, on 11/20/2008, -0/+6"although we won't see resurrected mammoths grazing the tundra anytime soon"

    Come on. Where's your sense of adventure?? Lets jimmy together some DNA, shove it in an elephant's womb and see what we can come up with. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?
  • 1professional, on 11/20/2008, -0/+2The woolly Mammoth may be the first reborn member of Jurassic Park as we know it. I say RE born because there are many living dinosaurs, which cohabited with the Big Reptiles until the meteorite hit 65 million years ago...such as turtles, tortoises, lizards and the like.
    I suppose they will try to create the egg and fertilise it with an elephant's sperm...a bit like making out with a Neanderthal.....
  • ashgtx, on 11/20/2008, -0/+1Manny's coming back!!!
  • redgiemental, on 11/20/2008, -1/+1I think this is a waste of time.

    Couldn't they be working on curing diseases or making us live longer.
    • PoppyLacava, on 11/21/2008, -0/+1I agree, a total waste of time.
      Dewds need to work on making wine non-fattening...I mean come on.
      Do something worthwhile.

  • induren, on 11/20/2008, -0/+1DNA degenerates at an insanely high rate. This "genome" is junk.
  • fx666, on 11/20/2008, -1/+1The dinosaurs died because they could not survive a triple whammy -- Ice Age, a gigantic meteor and steady accumulation of genetic defects. Apparently, there is no agreement among the evolutionists about the cause of dinosaur extinction.
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