One " Mammoth" of a Sale! Only $10 million dollars!

Posted by me | 11:14 PM | |

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Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million.

A woolly mammoth hair ball. Hairs like these were used to sequence the mammoth genome. The same technology could be applied to any other extinct species from which one can obtain hair, horn, hooves, fur or feathers, and which went extinct within the last 60,000 years, the effective age limit for DNA.

Though the stuffed animals in natural history museums are not likely to burst into life again, these old collections are full of items that may contain ancient DNA that can be decoded by the new generation of DNA sequencing machines. If the genome of an extinct species can be reconstructed, biologists can work out the exact DNA differences with the genome of its nearest living relative...

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2 comments

  1. Anonymous // November 26, 2008 at 4:24 PM  

    "The big issue would be whether enough people felt that a chimp-Neanderthal hybrid would be acceptable"

    Unbelievable and all for only $ 10 million! What a deal!

    Funny funny thanks

  2. robkroese // November 30, 2008 at 9:15 AM  

    Your blog template is giving me seizures.