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Frozen Mice Cloned
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Nov 05, 2008 12:00 PM
from the science-fiction-will-be-real-in-our-lifetime dept.
from the science-fiction-will-be-real-in-our-lifetime dept.
m0rphin3 writes "Japanese scientists have cloned mice whose bodies were frozen for as long as 16 years and said on Monday it may be possible to use the technique to resurrect mammoths and other extinct species. Could we finally see Jurassic Park become a reality, or perhaps use this for colonizing other galaxies?"
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That juicy t-bone steak (Score:3, Funny)
Re:That juicy t-bone steak (Score:5, Interesting)
We could be eating fresh prime rib almost every day without worrying about ethical issues concerning the raising of animals in inhumane conditions, and we'd be cutting down on the methane as well as not having to pump our meat full of hormones and antibiotics. It's much easier to grow a mass of muscle cells and raise them to maturity than it would be to grow an entire animal from scratch. I'll gladly be a guinea pig as I don't care of the meat looks like a softball so long as it tastes good.
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Re:That juicy t-bone steak (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:That juicy t-bone steak (Score:5, Funny)
I've already seen much comment by fanatical vegans on the Internet that even meat from lab-grown cells is deplorable.
But those are vegans. Us vegetarian-types would buy up lab-meat by the ton.
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Re:That juicy t-bone steak (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not quite. (Score:3, Insightful)
We need plants for minerals and meats for amino acids.
We get all the amino acids we need from plants. We don't actually 'need' meat at all. This belief is largely the product of successful marketing on the part of the meat and dairy industry.
That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't eat meat though. We do plenty of things we don't need to do, and it is ok.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, you have to make a distinction between what an individual "needs" to survive and what a species "needs" to support certain evolutionary trends.
There is seems to be considerable scientific opinion to the effect that meat eating played an important role in making the large brained, linguistically gifted and tool making species H. sapiens possible. However, this doesn't mean that individual humans or pre-humans have ever "needed" meat to survive, or that eating meat to any degree was more "healthy" as w
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Tofurkey?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would a vegan/vegetarian give a rats ass if a hunk of tofu tastes like turkey (or a hotdog, hamburger, etc) unless they THIRST FOR THE TASTE OF ANIMAL FLESH!!!
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
fanatical vegans... say that even if no animal was actually killed, people have still not subdued that part of themselves that gets pleasure from eating animal flesh.
Mmmm. Animal flesh. (drool). I wonder what Vegan tastes like?
Bitter. Very bitter.
Which is why I don't date them anymore. Just cant deal with the taste of vegan women.
Re:That juicy t-bone steak (Score:5, Funny)
Mmmm. Animal flesh. (drool). I wonder what Vegan tastes like?
Rather like cat. Not as gamey as dog, and lighter in texture than squirrel. Similar to kobe beef, but not quite as much marbling, due to the lack of fat in their diet. Oh, and utterly *unlike* rabbit.
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Re:That juicy t-bone steak (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it'd be easier to kill all the hippies.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:That juicy t-bone steak (Score:4, Funny)
Cruelty adds flavor.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sure we'll find you to be both tasty and delicious.
I told the waiter (Score:3, Interesting)
... that steak was so good I wouldn't mind meeting the cow, um er well too late I guess.
About 5-10 years from now
Me: Give me a '08 Fb795 ribeye please medium rare...
Waiter: An excellent choice, good vintage there.
The biggest question (Score:5, Funny)
Who keeps dead mice in their freezer for 16 years? Remind me not to have the Brunswick stew at their house.
Re:The biggest question (Score:5, Funny)
What, you don't like micicles?
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Or colonizing galaxies with mamoths? (Score:5, Funny)
We use this technology to colonize other galaxies with giant wooly mamoths. That would be so cool.
Re:Or colonizing galaxies with mamoths? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Or colonizing galaxies with mamoths? (Score:5, Funny)
That explains how million year old fossils ended up on a 6 thousand year old planet.
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Hmmmm (Score:2, Funny)
Not that interesting (Score:2, Informative)
Drop some DNA or a mouse in liquid nitrogen or even a -80 freezer and it will last indefinitely. Cloning is interesting but length of storage isn't.
Re:Not that interesting (Score:4, Informative)
The point is that they didn't do anything special to protect the cells against the damage of freezing. They took a mouse that was frozen just the way an animal would be frozen after death in the wild and worked around the damage freezing causes. The current cloning processes all use an intact healthy cell from an adult. This proves that's not necessary.
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16 years is not (Score:5, Insightful)
16,000 or 160,000,000 years. While this may be "just engineering" to some, it's still a big just as there's still a lot of DNA degradation that happens over the course of millennia. There's a lot of reasons this might not work for a species we've never seen develop.
Of course it may work smackingly well and we'll all have miniature pet t-rex's in my lifetime. That would be sweet, the cat may not like it though.
Re:16 years is not (Score:5, Funny)
16,000 or 160,000,000 years. While this may be "just engineering" to some, it's still a big just as there's still a lot of DNA degradation that happens over the course of millennia. There's a lot of reasons this might not work for a species we've never seen develop.
That's why you plug the gaps with frog DNA. Nothing could possibly go wrong!
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michael crichton just died (Score:5, Informative)
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Galaxies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting ahead of ourselves, arent we?
Why don't we check out the 400 billion stars in our own galaxy first?
Or is it you don't know what a galaxy is?
(Sorry, is that too many rhetorical questions?)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
(Sorry, is that too many rhetorical questions?)
I don't know, was that a rhetorical question?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You beat me to it. This is one of my pet peeves, and it shows up a lot in the crap that tries to pass itself off as science fiction on TV and in the movies. Does the general public really have no idea what a galaxy IS, or how far away other galaxies are, or how MANY stars there are in our own galaxy?
Same thing with time scales. Seems like no one cares too much to keep their millions, billions, and trillions straight. Come on, folks, it'll only take you 30 seconds of research to avoid making your ancient
Re:Galaxies? (Score:4, Funny)
"Maybe I'll start writing sports stories, and attribute everything I don't understand to the infield fly rule, since I don't really understand it. No matter if the story is about football."
And it's fifteen-love-all, Godspeed You! Black Emperor coming up the inside straight, tacking to windward and about to haul the spinnaker, but oh no what's this, the referee's calling a line-out, leg before wicket, straight to the solar plexus and his king's in check. Respawn, quad damage, but can he get a triple-word score on the centre square. Yes he can, he's cleared the sand trap, an eagle under par at silly mid off and what a finish, what a finish. Straight to Alpha Centauri. Magnificent.
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Not dinosaurs (Score:4, Insightful)
because there's hardly any DNA left in those fossils, let alone anything that's not damaged beyond recognition.
Mammoths, saber toothed cats or other species that have gone extinct more recently on the other hand...
Re:Not dinosaurs (Score:5, Funny)
How about the dodo.
Admit it you want to know how it tastes!
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Re:Not dinosaurs (Score:5, Funny)
To which John replies: "Sort of like a cross between bald eagle eggs and emperor penguin."
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Re:Not dinosaurs (Score:5, Funny)
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Ice Age Sequel (Score:5, Funny)
Jurrasic Park (Score:3, Insightful)
Alright, let's decide right now. (Score:3, Funny)
We know someone is going to make a real-life Jurassic Park someday, let's decide right now where it should be.
We need a really isolated island, let the voting begin!
Reply with your choice and for which reasons.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Japan.
They have lots of experience with Godzilla already.
Bring back Mark Twain (Score:2)
Brilliant! (Score:3, Funny)
Could we finally see Jurassic Park become a reality
Yea we should totally do that, because it worked out so well in the movie.
Re:Brilliant! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Brilliant! (Score:5, Funny)
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Any bets (Score:3)
Michael Crichton died today (Score:5, Informative)
Crichton died today, pre-Jurassic Park technology (Score:3, Informative)
If only Michael Crichton could have lived [cbsnews.com] to see it all come true.
Bring on the velociraptors [nniling.us]!
What are we going to do.... (Score:3, Funny)
Better rethink that plan (Score:3, Funny)
I don't think colonizing other galaxies with frozen mice is such a great idea. Live mice aren't too bright, let alone frozen ones.
Re:ethics (Score:5, Funny)
Like what, a long extinct animal suddenly appearing at a dinner party, causing everybody to spit out their drinks?
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