Scientists aiming to bring back woolly mammoth create woolly mice
Genetically modified mice have traits geared towards cold tolerance, in step towards modifying elephants
But no little tiny tusks? No trunk? Lame. Is it so wrong to want a tiny mammoth I can hold in one hand?
Real talk? Yes. Miniaturization of animals does not do good things for their health, in general. The systems of animal bodies are finely tuned by natural selection, and mucking with that is how you get dogs that can't breathe because their nose has been bred into the approximate shape of a squished aluminum can. Homeostasis is easy to throw off long-term when you play around with the square-cube law.
See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allometry#Physiological_scaling
You want a tiny mammoth, I want an aquarium sized whale... Where's the line? How long until there's a game show of duck sized horses or horse sized duck?
The 15ft tall 8,000 pound mouse was last seen rampaging in the downtown area. OK that's what I wanted the article to say.
This was wise. They had to create the woolly mice so that when they create the woolly mammoths, they can woolly control them.
Everything weird about this aside... Those mice are fucking adorable.
Agreed 100%. I know they arent for sale, but I kinda want to look into them as pets
Can I be nit-picky here for a second?
If you're genetically modifying an elephant for cold tolerance and fur growth, you're not "bring a mammoth back from extinction", you're creating a furry elephant. It may look somewhat like a mammoth, but genetically it's not a mammoth at all.
It's like saying you can genetically modify a homo-sapien to have a pronounced brow ridge and a hairier back and say that you've brought the neandertal back from extinction. No you haven't, you've just designed a human who looks different.
Well, the goal isn't to just create woolly mammoth-lile creatures by copying characteristics. The goal is to recreate the genome from what genome data we have into a living creature.
It's not like they are trying to create a sweded version, but take a creature that is already close and change the genes to match.
At least, that's how I understood it based on the article.
And next you’ll say that genetically-modified ears aren’t enough to make catgirls real either 😩
Can we let this one go? Not for science, not for accuracy, but for the prospect of having catgirls in our lifetimes, at least?
I already have the hairy back, can I say I am half neanderthalensis? Better than homo sapiens seeing how things are going...
That's not nit picky.
And the most annoying part is that this is incredibly fcking useless. Wooly mammoths went extinct for a reason. Large animals are becoming less and less evolutionary preferred. Wooly mammoths are adjusted for the cold while our globe is warming.
Can we just use our fcking resources for things that matter?????
You're using the same logic my dad uses to rail against going to Mars. He says there is no worthwhile reason to go there when more pressing matters on earth are in abundance.
Just like you, he is missing the forest for the trees, angrily ignorant to the fact that the knowledge you gained from trying to achieve a seemingly worthless achievement is the actual value, not in the achievement itself.
The achievement is just a convenient goal to make the science more exciting to the general public so as to garner more financial support from both private and government sources. Each of the steps needed to gain that achievement may not have gained as much funding as they do now if they were presented separately from that final goal.
Not really, we humans killed most big land animals that we found as we expanded our territory, back when we were hunters. This happened in big "islands" like Australia and Madagascar, as well as all the small islands. There, large animals had lived in equilibrium for centuries, and their extinction matches some short time after humans arrived. An exception are the galapago islands, as they were discovered in the 19th century.
mouse sized woolly mammoth would be pretty fucking cool.
imagine the sound when he toots his little trunk.
could store him in the fridge.
But how would he get in the fridge?
Open door, giraffe goes out, mammoth goes in, close door
Oh my god I want one so bad
I am skeptical of all articles with "scientists" in the title... but those mice are really cute. 😙
Kind of a dick move to bring an animal from the Ice Age, back to experience global warming.
Global warming 2 extinction boogaloo
This means they’re gonna make wooly elephants and try to make us call them woolly mammoths.
We spared no expense!
Why? How about focusing on preventing more extinctions instead of some Jurassic Park bullshit.
IIRC, the primary reason we're even going with this route is that one of the primary things stabilizing the arctic permafrost was actually the presence of snow-wading megafauna changing the rate of heat dissipation in high-wind tundras. So, they're trying to bring the wooly mammoth back to try to keep more permafrost around.
ETA: Here's the company actually saying this is the primary reason for doing it. Its about restoring the biodiversity loss from humans being an all-around virus for the last 10000 years.
We already know how to prevent more extinctions. Better environmental laws, more green spaces, better conservation efforts, less suburban sprawl, etc. You know, things that will never happen.
We have to experiment with mice before achieving the ultimate goal of laser shooting sharks.
They do look extremely cute though.
Is this how we get tribbles?
gotta start somewhere
new Pokémon just dropped?
How many butts do the mice have?
Tribbles!
Got the woolly m, just need a few more letters.
I'd like to buy a vowel. "U?"
Damnit!
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SPENT EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS MAKING TRANSGENDER MICE!
Ever since I was a kid I've always been hyped about the idea of them bringing back the mammoth. Been hearing about it my whole life...
But I have to ask... Why are we trying to, exactly? I mean, the planet's heating up. why are we trying to reintroduce a woolly mammoth? It's one thing if they're talking about using actual mammoth DNA and cloning it, but that article was talking about specifically just turning on some genes that cause fur and cold tolerance... What is the point of just making furry elephants at this point? Where are we sticking them, and why are we sticking them there? Is there some ecological niche that needs filling? Are we going to attempt to populate Antarctica (and hope it stays cold enough for that?) with hirsute pachyderms?
How about a different plan? As much as I have been excited woolly mammoths my entire life, let's try something a little different. Let's shrink the elephants we have, and introduce them into North America. Elephants the size of bison, roaming the continent. You can still make them cold tolerant, to handle winters, and give em some fur if you want. But the elephants we have are going extinct, and you're worrying about bringing back something else. How about we save what we have? Let them roam and graze Europe and North America, replacing the Aurochs and the bison. God knows we're not going to stop eating anything too cow like, so wild bison is basically right out. Let's let the elephant fill these niches, and save the species. They're too fucking smart to let die. Elephants got fucking religion, y'all. We cannot let them die.
Reintroducing mammoths in the arctic could potentially help reduce the climate change.
There is a scientist in Siberia who built the Pleistocene Park. An area where he reintroduced a lot of large herbivores and studied their impact. He's saying that boreal forest have a very low biodiversity compared to mammoth steppes. The steppes have way more animals, are stocking way more carbon in the soil and prevent methane leaks by keeping the permafrost frozen due to the low albedo of the biome.
The problem is that with the mammoths are indispensable to maintain the steppes. They are the only animal big enough to clear up trees, without them the forest is taking over and all the ecosystem of the steppes disappear.
So (according to this scientist), resurrecting the mammoth could revive a whole ecosystem, with a very rich biodiversity and that could have a give impact on the climate.
So there is a good reason, then? I've googled it before, and the best answers I've gotten are basically "cause MAMMOTHS!"
If that's the case and there's a good reason, then hell yeah, do whatever we can to prevent climate collapse!
But also, give me small elephants, please? Especially if they can manage Chihuahua sized elephants. I would have so many! And I would make sure they always have a clear view of the moon goddess they worship
We need to answer the age old question - what did wooly mammoths taste like?
I gather they were really popular back in the day...
Created a fake album cover inspired by this!
"We were like this close" 🤏
I like to imagine that every time they open the big test tube/canister thing, it's a totally different animal, but woolly.
I'd like to buy a vowel. "U!"
Damnit!
but the main ingredient remains the same: a mammoth.
