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Earth Science

Scientists Reawaken Cells From a 28,000-Year-Old Mammoth (vice.com) 82

Posted by BeauHD from the wakey-wakey dept.
Cells from a woolly mammoth that died more than 28,000 years ago have been partially reactivated inside of mouse egg cells, according to a study published Monday in Scientific Reports. "The achievement shows that biological activity can be induced in the cells of long-dead creatures, but that does not mean that scientists will be resurrecting extinct animals like mammoths any time soon," reports Motherboard. From the report: A team led by Kazuo Yamagata, a biologist at Kindai University in Japan, extracted cells from the remains of "Yuka," a young female mammoth discovered in 2010 on the coast of the Dmitry Laptev Strait in the Russian Far East. Yuka was entombed in permafrost, a frozen ground layer that can often keep the skin, fur, brains, and other softer tissues of dead animals intact. Because Yuka is in particularly great condition, Yamagata's team was able to extract 88 nucleus-like structures from her preserved muscle tissues. The mammoth cells were implanted into mouse oocytes, which are ovarian cells involved in embryonic development. The researchers also implanted elephant cells into mouse eggs to provide a control sample.

Once the cell nuclei were incubated, they seemed to reawaken -- but only slightly. The cells did not divide, but completed some steps that precede cell division. For instance, the mammoth nuclei performed a process called "spindle assembly," which ensures that chromosomes are correctly attached to microscopic spindle structures before a parent cell breaks into two daughter cells. The fact that Yuka's cells were able to spring back into partial action is both an exciting and challenging development for scientists interested in cloning extinct animals. On one hand, some degree of cellular reactivation is clearly possible. But Yuka is also an exceptionally pristine specimen, and even her cells were not able to complete cell division -- a major hurdle that scientists must clear to accomplish de-extinction.
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Scientists Reawaken Cells From a 28,000-Year-Old Mammoth More

Scientists Reawaken Cells From a 28,000-Year-Old Mammoth

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  • Fortune Favors the Bold (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2019 @05:06AM (#58266210)
    Next Step: Mouse pregnant with mammoth embryo.
    • I hope they're planning on a C-section for Mama Mouse.

    • Next Step: Mouse pregnant with mammoth embryo.

      That will be awkward when the baby Mammoth is born and opens its eyes for the first time seeing it's stretched out momma and gets imprinted.

      Mammoth will think it's a mouse and try mating with mice when it grows up. Hopefully the Mammoth is a girl, because I don't think a mammoth penis will fit in a female mouse.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Congrats! It's a mamouse.

    • They're playing with fire, I tell you. Seen Legend?? That's nothing; imagine the Earth overrun with mice... with the strength of mammoths!
  • Welcome out new Wooly Mammoth Mouse overlords.
    #obligatory

  • Dr Ian Malcolm said it best (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CeasedCaring ( 1527717 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2019 @05:16AM (#58266228)
    "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should..."
    • He also said a lot of other things.
      "You will fail because chaos"
      - "I don't get..."
      "CHAOS! Oh and also hubris"
      Certainly one of the more insufferable characters in movie history (and not at all like the guy in the book)

      And in this case, of course they should. Whether they should proceed to build an ill-conceived (and rather lame) theme park with extinct animals is another matter.

    • In many ways we have been brainwashed into the Warning from Science Fiction, where we relate the experiments to the dystopia that causes many Science Fiction stories.
      Genetic Engineering in Science Fiction will lead to monsters, plagues, and KAHNNN!!! KAhnnn!! Kahnn! ann n. Cloning creates doppelgangers, and species of animals that seem well adapted to an environment that is much different to what they were evolved for. AI will always deem mankind is unnecessary and should be destroyed...

      Real science is mu

      • Those stories are how we process our possible future well in advance. The reason the dystopias never come to pass is specifically because everything has been explored far in advance by fiction. If you think Asimov's fictional 3 laws had no influence on Tesla's pseudo-self-driving cars, you're ignoring a lot.

    • "Life, uh... finds a way." - Dr. Ian Malcolm

  • It Begins (Score:5, Funny)

    by Only Time Will Tell ( 5213883 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2019 @07:41AM (#58266588)
    Maiya looked out wistfully over the horizon at the valley below. She leaned heavily on her walking stick carved from a mammoth shin bone and pulled back her sabertoothed tiger cowl. What changes this valley had seen over the past few decades. A few paces back, her son finally caught up with her and joined her in the view. "What was it like before they resurrected all the dinosaurs and ancient animals?" Maiya sighed heavily, eying the overgrowth that had swallowed a city that used to be called 'L.A.' She could hear in the distance the howls and screams of something fighting for its life. "Well, for one, we stepped in a lot less T-Rex shit."

  • Cells from a woolly mammoth that died more than 28,000 years ago have been partially reactivated inside of mouse egg cells

    BRAINZZZZZ .... and cheese.

    So, errr, like, what do you use -- a mousetrap? A mammoth trap? And it kills them? But, but they're already dead.

    More like you'd get 'em more pissed than they were already. A mammoth-sized mouse is now upset with you. And here you thought your day was bad enough already.

  • It seems to me from this experiment they will learn a whole lot more about how to preserve cells for a long period of time than how to reawaken them.

  • ... get to be desirable, even when it comes to reviving mammoths. After all, what would be the point of reviving an old male ?

  • The mouse became scared of itself.

  • Will the world end in Parasite Eve, Skynet, or Heavy Weather?

  • Finally someone has made exciting advancements in the field. I propose we being to pool efforts to advance this quickly due to it's amazing medical applications. We can start by putting all the scientists in one major facility and managing them under a single Umbrella Corporation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by es330td ( 964170 )
      Assuming you aren't joking, this is a terrible idea. In all fields, the universe progresses through competition. Always has, always will. Removing competition will only slow progress.
  • De-extinction is rife with seemingly intractable problems. Going to locate and clone a sufficient number of unique preserved specimens to avoid inbreeding? What about reproducing its entire exterior/interior microbiome - especially the essential gut flora?

    • De-extinction is rife with seemingly intractable problems.

      ... most of which are ethical rather than about the possibility of the procedure.

      Going to locate and clone a sufficient number of unique preserved specimens to avoid inbreeding?

      If you've developed a technique, you will almost certainly already have tried a variety of samples from a variety of sources before you get one which works. So when you've found a solution that works, you try it on the previous samples which didn't work with different techni

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