Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MP-Ryan on April 12, 2012, 01:51:05 pm
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There should be a :P in the thread title, because this is actually really exciting work.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/video/video-russian-scientists-attempt-jurassic-park-like-revival-of-woolly-mammoth/article2400026/
Essentially, the plan is to take mammoth DNA preserved from specimens found in permafrost, implant it into an elephant's egg, and then implant said egg into a live female elephant. Sounds simple, but there are some major hurdles:
1. This is the procedure by which we achieve cloning of live organisms, but cloning has some major drawbacks - differentiated tissues (i.e. anything that isn't a stem cell) have non-reversible changes to their DNA and chromosome structure. Organisms cloned from differentiated tissues have all kinds of major health problems. Best fix is to find non-differentiated or only slightly differentiated tissues, which means hoping there's some DNA left in the bones.
2. DNA is tough but not that tough - most of the world's mammoths died out about 10,000 years ago. The cold and permanently stable temperatures of permafrost will have done a great deal to preserve DNA (especially if the corpse partially-dessicated), but it's still going to be a major undertaking to assemble a complete genome.
3. Mammoths and elephants are closely-genetically related, but there's always the possibility that an elephant's immune system could prevent the growth of or kill a mammoth embryo.
4. Behaviour is only partially encoded in DNA. Even if you clone a mammoth, it's still not going to fully know how to actually live like a mammoth. Behaviour evolves much faster than biology. (Here's where I invoke Crichton).
But, notwithstanding the hurdles, this is a crazy-cool project. The applications of addressing the hurdles alone will be enormously beneficial.
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Man, this would be awesome. Considering that humans were mostly responsible for the mammoth's extinction, it's kind of like taking conservation of endangered species and putting it in a time machine. I wonder if there are any good DNA samples of a dodo...
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There should be. Also, it might turn out there are dodos left on some remote island, which hasn't been re-discovered yet. IIRC, this did happen before.
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we shouldnt be bringing back extinct species, we should be engineering our own.
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How delicious are mammoth? That's the important factor :P
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we shouldnt be bringing back extinct species, we should be engineering our own.
Didn't you start your modding adventures with copypasting some tables and making small tweaks here and there? Think of it as a rough analogue.
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we shouldnt be bringing back extinct species, we should be engineering our own.
Gentlemen, I present to you: the Dodomammothasaurus!
<cue destruction of New York>
Didn't you start your modding adventures with copypasting some tables and making small tweaks here and there? Think of it as a rough analogue.
Pfft. Go big or go home.
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we shouldnt be bringing back extinct species, we should be engineering our own.
Problem being is that the creatures we create could possibly kill us all thus not allowing you to nuke the world, or it'll kill everything in the ecosystem sending it into collapse ending livable situations on this planet so you can't nuke it
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Bio-nuke
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Derailed in 4 posts. Impressive.
:)
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The real question is if this will help pave the way for my future work of creating Chocobos and Moogles.
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How delicious are mammoth? That's the important factor :P
Those who've tried it said it wasn't too tasty. But then again their complaint was that it tasted like it had been in the freezer too long (http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/2555/prehistoric-meat-up).
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we shouldnt be bringing back extinct species, we should be engineering our own.
Didn't you start your modding adventures with copypasting some tables and making small tweaks here and there? Think of it as a rough analogue.
if you must know freespace isnt the first game ive modded. ive done **** with descent and quake before then. descent required a lot of hex editing, and quake required at least some programming in quake c to get anything done. freespace modding by the time i got into it was so ridiculously easy for me that i jumped over fred right into models. table editing was trivial. im old skool, i remember entering all the $nd tags and they ****ing worked because i was running in glide. them were the days. your 500 poly model was "awesome" though some thought that the poly count was somewhat high.
were already engineering species. glow in the dark cats and customized germs (for biomanufacturing, warfare). now engineer a cow where all the meat is filet mingion, or a hooker who lives off of semen.
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"Nuke" (one of) our resident hipster programmer(s).
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hipster my ass.
and i havent written a line of code in nearly 3 weeks.
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"Nuke" (one of) our resident hipster programmer(s).
Nuke was modding way back when Descent was still underground.
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"Nuke" (one of) our resident hipster programmer(s).
Nuke was modding way back when Descent was still underground.
descent to undermountain
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Nuke most defs hunts mammoth while riding a fixie.
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IIRC we cloned some extinct deer-like or antelope-like creature a while back and brought it back from extinction but then it died.
EDIT: it was the Pyrenean Ibex
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IIRC we cloned some extinct deer-like or antelope-like creature a while back and brought it back from extinction but then it died violently murdered the entire research staff and had to be destroyed by an airstrike that leveled the facility and surrounding town.
EDIT: it was the Pyrenean Ibex
fixed
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We can't even keep the species we've got right now alive. Why are we bringing back extinct ones? Unless we actually practice conservation and set aside enough land for these creatures, all we're doing is making big zoo animals.
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We can't even keep the species we've got right now alive. Why are we bringing back extinct ones? Unless we actually practice conservation and set aside enough land for these creatures, all we're doing is making big zoo animals.
We're looking for more efficient and tasty domesticated ones? Let's be honest here, the cows and their methane emissions are destroying the world.
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Get rid of motor vehicles, bring in dinosaurs. Simples.
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We can't even keep the species we've got right now alive. Why are we bringing back extinct ones? Unless we actually practice conservation and set aside enough land for these creatures, all we're doing is making big zoo animals.
species are supposed to go extinct, thats the way evolution works. when a force changes their environment, such as humans, animals will evolve to adapt. look at cats, they are already have it all figured out. example of a species to figure out that self-domestication (and being really cute) is a valid survival strategy. another way an animal can preserve their species is by evolving to be tasty. this will ensure a species' survival, as we will want to breed such creatures under controlled situations so as to devour them.
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We can't even keep the species we've got right now alive. Why are we bringing back extinct ones? Unless we actually practice conservation and set aside enough land for these creatures, all we're doing is making big zoo animals.
No, we're refining incredibly complex techniques for molecular genetics and proving they work. That alone is reason enough for projects like these.
Extinctions are part of the evolutionary process. Bringing back the mammoth as a viable, sustained species that can live in the wild isn't really an option. Learning to restore DNA preserved for thousands of years to clone an organism and produce a viable adult has all kinds of applications for human medicine.
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Man, this would be awesome. Considering that humans were mostly responsible for the mammoth's extinction, it's kind of like taking conservation of endangered species and putting it in a time machine. I wonder if there are any good DNA samples of a dodo...
Cool, so we can kill off the whales and clone them later when that probe shows up...
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****ing hippies. :D
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We can't even keep the species we've got right now alive. Why are we bringing back extinct ones? Unless we actually practice conservation and set aside enough land for these creatures, all we're doing is making big zoo animals.
No, we're refining incredibly complex techniques for molecular genetics and proving they work. That alone is reason enough for projects like these.
Extinctions are part of the evolutionary process. Bringing back the mammoth as a viable, sustained species that can live in the wild isn't really an option. Learning to restore DNA preserved for thousands of years to clone an organism and produce a viable adult has all kinds of applications for human medicine.
Sooo..........This WILL help on the road to create chocobos and moogles?