In effort to bring back woolly mammoths (a process called de-extinction), geneticists at Harvard used a tool called CRISPR to splice certain woolly mammoth genes and put them in an Asian elephant’s genome. It worked and the mammoth’s genes were functional in the elephant. The team’s next goal is to make elephant/mammoth hybrid embryos and grow them in artificial wombs (because having an elephant give birth to it is not as ethical). Then, if the creature survives, they want to make it so it can survive in cold temperatures. Although it will not purely be a woolly mammoth, it will look very similar and have the same ecological niches as they do, which is close enough.
I find all of this good and bad. It is good in the way that mammoths live in cold climates while elephants live in hot. Because there are so many people where elephants live, there are many problems that elephants today face, including extinction. There are not as many humans in the colder areas, so they would be safer there. However, ecosystems in colder climates have adapted to life without mammoths a long time ago. If they were brought back, how would the rest of the organisms be affected? Would there be enough food for the mammoths and competing predators?
How crazy would it be for this to work! I don't really know if I want this study to be completely successful because of the doors it could open. But knowing that is being studied is truly amazing.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent idea to replicate an extinct species, but I believe it will be difficult for this new species to survive. First, will this new mammoth be sterile; natural hybrids like mules and ligers are born sterile and cannot be sustained in the wild. If they can reproduce, how many of these mammoths will geneticists have to create before this species can be self-sustaining? I believe since the technology exists to create animals, that these geneticists should focus on saving endangered species, like the Asian elephant, before creating hybrid species.
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