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Post by silverstein on Sept 13, 2012 21:45:15 GMT 9
Mammoth fragments from Siberia raise cloning hopesMOSCOW (AP) — Scientists have discovered well-preserved frozen woolly mammoth fragments deep in Siberia that may contain living cells, edging a tad closer to the "Jurassic Park" possibility of cloning a prehistoric animal, the mission's organizer said Tuesday.
Russia's North-Eastern Federal University said an international team of researchers had discovered mammoth hair, soft tissues and bone marrow some 328 feet (100 meters) underground during a summer expedition in the northeastern province of Yakutia.
Expedition chief Semyon Grigoryev said Korean scientists with the team had set a goal of finding living cells in the hope of cloning a mammoth. Scientists have previously found bones and fragments but not living cells.
Grigoryev told the online newspaper Vzglyad it would take months of research to determine whether they have indeed found the cells.
"Only after thorough laboratory research will it be known whether these are living cells or not," he said, adding that would take until the end of the year at the earliest.
Wooly mammoths are thought to have died out around 10,000 years ago, although scientists think small groups of them lived longer in Alaska and on Russia's Wrangel Island off the Siberian coast.Bet somebody a chonner we get these up and milling about within a decade.
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Post by moose on Sept 18, 2012 20:22:20 GMT 9
I read an article in the BBC not too long ago about cloning mammoths and other extinct critters.
Apparently the process is exceedingly complex and there are several key technologies that just don't exist just yet.
But, if it can be done, it will be done.
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Post by Baek on Dec 1, 2013 13:08:41 GMT 9
I think we will see this type of cloning in our lifetime. That is, if we lives long enuff!
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Post by Ironhead on Apr 10, 2014 6:40:26 GMT 9
Russian scientists: We have a "high chance" of cloning a wooly mammoth Viktoria Egorova, chief of the Research and Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory of the Medical Clinic of North-Eastern Federal University, told Siberian Times that:
The tissue cut clearly shows blood vessels with strong walls. Inside the vessels there is haemolysed blood, where for the first time we have found erythrocytes. Muscle and adipose tissues are well preserved. We have also obtained very well visualised migrating cells of the lymphoid tissue, which is another great discovery. The upper part of the carcass has been eaten by animals, yet the lower part with the legs and, astonishingly, the trunk are very well preserved.
We also have the mammoth's liver — very well preserved, too, and looks like with some solid fragments inside it. We haven't managed to study them yet, but the first suggestion is that possibly these are kidney stones. Another discovery was intestines with remains of the vegetation the mammoth ate before its death, and a multi-chambered stomach what we've been working with today, collecting tissue samples. There is a lot more material that will have to go through laboratory research.
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