Mammoth Essay

WORK INTRODUCTION Theoretically, mammoths could be cloned by recovering, reconstructing or synthesizing viable mammoth DNA and injecting it into the egg cell of a modern elephant whose nuclear DNA has been removed; alternatively, mammoth genetic material could be introduced into an elephant genome in order to create a mammoth-elephant hybrid or chimera. The possibility of bringing extinct animals back to life has fascinated people for years. While something like Jurassic Park is unlikely, Pleistocene Park just got one step closer to becoming a reality. One day, mammoths may walk the Earth again.

The first step is to begin to understand the creature humanity wants to return to the world. A woolly mammoth, also known as Mammuthus primigenius, is one of several types of mammoths that belong in the genus Mammuthus and within the order Proboscidea. The difference between a woolly mammoth and an elephant is that a woolly mammoth had a large shoulder hump, a sloping back, smaller ears, a small trunk with a distinctive tip and two finger-like projections, huge spirally curved tusks up to 3.5 meters long, and spiral locks of dark hair covering a silky under fur.

Mammoths can be classified on a number of variables such as: the height of the crown, the number of ridges on crown, and thickness of the enamel. There are generally two main varieties of mammoths in both Eurasia and North America; one type is smaller and generally inhabited the north, and the second southern type from both Eurasia and North America can be lumped together for simplification and referred to as the Columbian mammoth, or Mammuthus columbi.

The main question surrounding the scientific community is why should we take the time and resources to clone a mammoth? What wo...

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Even still, from the perspective of natural selection, it could be said that natural forces selected against mammals from the Pleistocene age since they could not adapt to changing ecological and climatic conditions. One can argue that bringing these animals back from extinction essentially contravenes the intent of nature and raises a number of complex philosophical questions that are still being debated today.

Despite all of this debate and controversy, it still says a lot about the human race that we can even discuss the possibility of, in a way, raising the dead. There has clearly been much discussion about whether synthetic biology could really create artificial life and bring back the most iconic mammal from the Pleistocene era. There are obviously many positives and negatives to cloning, but one cannot deny that it is now within humanity’s power to do so.