5 ms·

The Woolly Mammoth's Last Stand

52 points by gwern 9y ago

Pica_soO 9y ago
Basically there is no adaption that works against bad circumstances that adapt to you - besides intelligence. We might wipe out all bigger life-forms where we go- but in our shadow, intelligent life might grow. Arras able to do take out orders from unoccupied flats. Foxes able to open trash cans. Wild boars, planting ambrosia to keep allergic humans at bay. Algae and Fungi able to eat electricity and plastic. Nature has a nice come back swing. Not very Disney, but nothing is.
- duncan_bayne 9y ago
  As a child I read a science fiction story about a distant future Earth where sapience was the best survival strategy for complex life. /me Googles http://variety-sf.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/raymond-z-gallun-seeds-of-dusk.html http://variety-sf.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/raymond-z-gallun-s... I remain indebted to my parents for their excellent collection of books, to which I had access at a young age.
thriftwy 9y ago
Let's clone a Mammoth! Why aren't we. Most of nothern megafauna was destroyed anyway (mostly not by humans, but climate change) and we should probably bring it all back. Replace swamps with steppes.
- bamboozled 9y ago
  To start with, we're wiping out pretty much any natural habitat it might may able to survive in at an alarming rate. Along with that of the polar bear and elephants etc. We seem to also have a pretty good habit of causing countless other species to go extinct, so maybe if we learn to look after the species we have, we can get a new pet? So why invest bringing back something back that will just get made extinct again?
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    Nope! Siberia (especially Northern) is basically an uninhabited land. We can surely host a lot of mammoths and wooly rhinos there. Why can't we have a new pet now?
    - wavefunction 9y ago
      Have you been paying any attention to climate change? Y'all are the last sorta folks that deserve ANYTHING. "Me me me."
      - dang 9y ago
        Attacking other users will get your account banned on HN regardless of how good your cause is. We've warned you before, so please don't post like this again.
    - credit_guy 9y ago
      Oh, it's gonna happen. The technology is not quite there yet, but it's advancing rapidly. What do you think, if you can prove you have a decent shot to do it, will YCombinator support you?
    - ktRolster 9y ago
      From what I've read, the hard part isn't cloning, we already have that technology. The hard part is growing it in a womb, where the baby is bathed in various chemicals at various times in its progression, and where the temperature has to be exactly right. Where do you attach the umbilical cord? Do you know what the body temperature of the womb a pregnant mammoth is? Tough question.
      - yorwba 9y ago
        Unless we figure out a way to make artificial wombs, our best bet is just to use an elephant for that. Since mammoths are unlikely to differ much in terms of body temperature and nutrient requirements, the problems you mention won't be much of an issue. More problematic would be immune system incompatibility, which could lead to the mammoth or its elephant mother being killed by the other's immune system response. But I think we have a way to deal with that when it happens in humans, so there should be a workaround. Anyway, first you need to get some cells with mammoth DNA to divide often enough. Before you have that, those other problems don't really matter much.
- rhaps0dy 9y ago
  >Why aren't we. But we are! Well, we want to try. And to stave off climate change, none the less. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleistocene-park/517779/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleisto...

52 points by gwern 9y ago

Basically there is no adaption that works against bad circumstances that adapt to you - besides intelligence. We might wipe out all bigger life-forms where we go- but in our shadow, intelligent life might grow. Arras able to do take out orders from unoccupied flats. Foxes able to open trash cans. Wild boars, planting ambrosia to keep allergic humans at bay. Algae and Fungi able to eat electricity and plastic. Nature has a nice come back swing. Not very Disney, but nothing is.

duncan_bayne 9y ago
As a child I read a science fiction story about a distant future Earth where sapience was the best survival strategy for complex life. /me Googles http://variety-sf.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/raymond-z-gallun-seeds-of-dusk.html http://variety-sf.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/raymond-z-gallun-s... I remain indebted to my parents for their excellent collection of books, to which I had access at a young age.

thriftwy 9y ago

Let's clone a Mammoth! Why aren't we. Most of nothern megafauna was destroyed anyway (mostly not by humans, but climate change) and we should probably bring it all back. Replace swamps with steppes.

bamboozled 9y ago
To start with, we're wiping out pretty much any natural habitat it might may able to survive in at an alarming rate. Along with that of the polar bear and elephants etc. We seem to also have a pretty good habit of causing countless other species to go extinct, so maybe if we learn to look after the species we have, we can get a new pet? So why invest bringing back something back that will just get made extinct again?
- thriftwy 9y ago
  Nope! Siberia (especially Northern) is basically an uninhabited land. We can surely host a lot of mammoths and wooly rhinos there. Why can't we have a new pet now?
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    Have you been paying any attention to climate change? Y'all are the last sorta folks that deserve ANYTHING. "Me me me."
    - dang 9y ago
      Attacking other users will get your account banned on HN regardless of how good your cause is. We've warned you before, so please don't post like this again.
  - credit_guy 9y ago
    Oh, it's gonna happen. The technology is not quite there yet, but it's advancing rapidly. What do you think, if you can prove you have a decent shot to do it, will YCombinator support you?
  - ktRolster 9y ago
    From what I've read, the hard part isn't cloning, we already have that technology. The hard part is growing it in a womb, where the baby is bathed in various chemicals at various times in its progression, and where the temperature has to be exactly right. Where do you attach the umbilical cord? Do you know what the body temperature of the womb a pregnant mammoth is? Tough question.
    - yorwba 9y ago
      Unless we figure out a way to make artificial wombs, our best bet is just to use an elephant for that. Since mammoths are unlikely to differ much in terms of body temperature and nutrient requirements, the problems you mention won't be much of an issue. More problematic would be immune system incompatibility, which could lead to the mammoth or its elephant mother being killed by the other's immune system response. But I think we have a way to deal with that when it happens in humans, so there should be a workaround. Anyway, first you need to get some cells with mammoth DNA to divide often enough. Before you have that, those other problems don't really matter much.
rhaps0dy 9y ago
>Why aren't we. But we are! Well, we want to try. And to stave off climate change, none the less. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleistocene-park/517779/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleisto...