Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/20/russians-cloning-wooly-mammoth.html
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Pretty sure I read a press release stating this almost verbatim about ten years ago.
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Pretty sure it is mentioned in the story linked.
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I wouldn’t put too much money on that timetable is all I’m sayin’.
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Let the Russians dream.
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I guess. I have to admit most people used to doubt Big Bird’s claims about woolly mammoths too, but Snuffy showed the doubters eventually.
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I’m glad someone is on this. With elephant populations in mysterious decline worldwide, forward thinking efforts like this may be our only hope of keeping large, trunked mammals around. /s
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/09/wildlife-watch-news-botswana-elephants-poaching/
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Just in time for cold fusion!
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But the teenagers will taunt them because their pants are out of style.
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George Church, he of Harvard and a glorious beard, is a proponent of de-extincting the mastodon as part of a plan to restore the tundra. The idea being that mastodons help create the tundra by their herd migration, breaking up hard ground with their feet, fertilizing the ground with their urine and manure, and allowing the tundra to rebuild itself. The idea is called Pleistocene Park (http://www.pleistocenepark.ru/en/).
This is very close to the ideas of Alan Savory’s Holistic Management (my notes available at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2014/03/holistic-management-new-framework-for.html) who works with grasslands using existing herd animals, continually moving the grazing ground so that no place is overgrazed and each place has enough time to recover before being grazed again.
Savory’s work is “controversial” but I wonder if Church or the Russians involved in Pleistocene Park have ever even mentioned Savory’s ideas let alone defended him.
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I must admit, it’s fun to hear a story involving Russians that doesn’t involve disrupting our democracy or poisoning people around the world.
Even more fun when it’s along the lines of “science running amok” and “[Russian scientists] were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should”.
Is there anyone working on scientifically bringing a unicorn into existence?
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Well all those flying cars are going to need some kind of efficient power source.
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Burning Man.
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Don’t you mean Musk’s subterranean road network?
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Obligatory…
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Life…uh…finds a way.
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Meanwhile elephants are being wiped out.
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He lives… you know that right?
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What’s the worst that could happen?
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