Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

What's happening in your world? Discuss it here.
Forum rules
Play nice. We will be watching

Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby Typical Michael » Wed May 29, 2013 7:56 pm

http://phys.org/news/2013-05-russian-sc ... mmoth.html

As Siberia thaws, more and more mammoth carcasses show up. And they are still considered carcasses, because they are still meat. And sometimes, edible.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... for-dinner

Even when mammoth meat isn't actually putrid, it still doesn't make great eating. According to Richard Stone's book Mammoth (2001), Russian zoologist Alexei Tikhonov (who figures in articles about the recent Siberian find) once tried a bite and said "it was awful. It tasted like meat left too long in a freezer."


Not great, but edible.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

But now, I guess they found a mammoth carcass, poked it or something, and blood oozed out. That is pretty cool, because if there are viable living cells, there is the possibility of cloning. This is also the "old lady" of a mammoth, in that an older female, in this case about 60, hasn't been found, before.

So, what do you think? Morality? Practicality?


_______________________________________________________________________________________________
  • 7

"Typical... Michael... is a ddddddddddddddddddddashing individual!!! *BC punches self in face*" - ButtChocolate

"I'm like Batman, but instead of helping people I'm awful." - CleverDick

"In fairness, I was the one who brought up the goats." - JamesT
User avatar
Typical Michael
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 2094
Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2013 2:01 pm
Location: The Internet
Show rep
Title: ThingMaster

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby JamesT » Wed May 29, 2013 7:59 pm

I want a hundred mammoth clones. I don't care if it's moral or practical, I just want an army of them to do my bidding and get back at those who called me mad.
  • 12

Say hello to my comic: Lil Oppy!

Say hi to my art!
User avatar
JamesT
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 2627
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 12:21 pm
Location: On The AMERICAN Road
Show rep
Title: The Cardboard King

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby Marcuse » Wed May 29, 2013 8:02 pm

I think....


Skulls for the Skull Throne!


Wait... about mammoth cloning?

OK, that's probably a poor idea. We'd only be cloning them for study, amusement, or apparently food. They don't have an environment to live in and would be poorly adapted to life in our time. We could do it but would be an example of extreme hubris on our part unless there was a really good reason why we were doing it.
  • 5

User avatar
Marcuse
TCS Sithlord
TCS Sithlord
 
Posts: 6592
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:00 pm
Show rep

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby Dottoe » Wed May 29, 2013 8:47 pm

No no no nonono.

No mammoth clones. Not a one of them.

Yeah, I can get the science for science's sake, and that's pretty cool, but this is just stupid. Mammoths are not Gordon Freeman, you can't just pop them out of existence for a long time, then pop them back in perfectly fine. Everything else has moved on without them, from the food they were able to digest to the microbes that helped that process along, to the creatures that hunted them and ecosystem they fit into.
  • 8

Living is the biggest 'screw you' you can give anyone. -Dante Shepard
User avatar
Dottoe
TCS Irregular
TCS Irregular
 
Posts: 556
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:53 pm
Location: The Empty City
Show rep

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Wed May 29, 2013 9:16 pm

According to my brother, EU law says that we'd be technically obliged to reintroduce them if the technology became available. But then we're technicially obliged to reintroduce wolves and bears to Britain, and we haven't done that.
  • 5

A society without redemption would damn us all ~ Kate
User avatar
OrangeEyebrows
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 5700
Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2013 8:48 pm
Location: Dormouse-like in a teapot
Show rep
Title: Magnifitail

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby Typical Michael » Wed May 29, 2013 9:19 pm

Should really feel bad about the wolves.
  • 3

"Typical... Michael... is a ddddddddddddddddddddashing individual!!! *BC punches self in face*" - ButtChocolate

"I'm like Batman, but instead of helping people I'm awful." - CleverDick

"In fairness, I was the one who brought up the goats." - JamesT
User avatar
Typical Michael
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 2094
Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2013 2:01 pm
Location: The Internet
Show rep
Title: ThingMaster

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Wed May 29, 2013 9:26 pm

Well it wasn't actually me...
  • 5

A society without redemption would damn us all ~ Kate
User avatar
OrangeEyebrows
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 5700
Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2013 8:48 pm
Location: Dormouse-like in a teapot
Show rep
Title: Magnifitail

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby Marcuse » Wed May 29, 2013 9:41 pm

The EU has a ton of BS laws that nobody follows anyway. This absurdly long and complicated document reveals on about page 90 that there's been standing policies to kill things like the Eurasian Beaver in the interests of "public safety".

So I doubt they have a law that states "If we find a way to clone animals extinct for millennia we should reintroduce them into a completely foreign habitat and watch them die from all the diseases they have not immunity to."

But I wouldn't put it past the EU...
  • 2

User avatar
Marcuse
TCS Sithlord
TCS Sithlord
 
Posts: 6592
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:00 pm
Show rep

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby Qinglong » Wed May 29, 2013 9:42 pm

Has Jurassic Park taught us nothing? Cloning mammoths will only lead to this:

Image
  • 7

Man created logic and because of that was superior to it. Logic He gave unto me, but no more. The tool does not describe the designer. More than this I do not choose to say. More than this you have no need to know.
User avatar
Qinglong
Knight Writer
Knight Writer
 
Posts: 1765
Joined: Mon Apr 15, 2013 2:27 pm
Location: The Eastern Sky
Show rep
Title: Experienced Bystander

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby Typical Michael » Wed May 29, 2013 10:07 pm

I would see a billion dollars going toward drunken furry elephants.

  • 3

"Typical... Michael... is a ddddddddddddddddddddashing individual!!! *BC punches self in face*" - ButtChocolate

"I'm like Batman, but instead of helping people I'm awful." - CleverDick

"In fairness, I was the one who brought up the goats." - JamesT
User avatar
Typical Michael
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 2094
Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2013 2:01 pm
Location: The Internet
Show rep
Title: ThingMaster

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby Learned Nand » Wed May 29, 2013 11:15 pm

I really don't think the desire to clone extinct animals is ever going to go away, so we should start working our way up to the mammoth. Maybe start with a tasmanian tiger?
  • 5

Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
User avatar
Learned Nand
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9858
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:18 pm
Location: Permanently in the wrong
Show rep
Title: Auditor of Reality

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby D-LOGAN » Wed May 29, 2013 11:28 pm

I warned them back then. It's not enough to just kill them all, we must wipe every last trace of their physical forms off the face of the earth! Burn them to their ashes and then BURN THE ASHES I said. But they scoffed at me, told me they were gone forever and had their Shamans curse me with eternal youth as punishment for my folly.
And now scarcely 4000 years after I sent the last of these Hairy Devil Pachyderms back to the hell from whence it came......
THE MAMMOTH'S HAVE FOUND A WAY BACK, as I always knew they would. God help us, God help us all!
  • 8

Last edited by D-LOGAN on Wed May 29, 2013 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Not just yet, I'm still tender from before.
User avatar
D-LOGAN
TCS Junkie
TCS Junkie
 
Posts: 3590
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:08 pm
Location: Éire
Show rep
Title: ALL PRAISE UNTO MIGHTY KEK!

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby Psychosassic » Wed May 29, 2013 11:31 pm

I'd heard people spitballing the idea of bringing back something like a passenger pigeon first. That seems like a good idea to me. Baby steps. Small, non-stompy baby steps.
  • 6

Avatar courtesy of xkcd.
Everything else courtesy of Psychosassic Enterprises and the cooperation of Viewers Like You.
User avatar
Psychosassic
TCS Regular
TCS Regular
 
Posts: 265
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 10:10 pm
Location: アメリカ
Show rep
Title: Secretly Living in Your Home

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Wed May 29, 2013 11:40 pm

I say clone them. What could possibly go wrong? It's not like they're carnivores.
  • 1

Image
User avatar
Deathclaw_Puncher
Knight Writer
Knight Writer
 
Posts: 12452
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:42 pm
Location: Fair Oaks, CA
Show rep
Title: Queen of the Furrets

Re: Science: Mammoth Blood for the Blood God!

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Wed May 29, 2013 11:43 pm

Marcuse wrote:"If we find a way to clone animals extinct for millennia we should reintroduce them into a completely foreign habitat and watch them die from all the diseases they have not immunity to."


Isn't immunity something that's developed in the womb and through breastfeeding? So wouldn't the ickle baby mammoth get immunity from the surrogate (presumably a heffalump)?
  • 2

A society without redemption would damn us all ~ Kate
User avatar
OrangeEyebrows
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 5700
Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2013 8:48 pm
Location: Dormouse-like in a teapot
Show rep
Title: Magnifitail

Next

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests

cron