Exactly. Where do you get Columbian mammoth DNA? I don’t believe that any has been found. For woolly mammoths we have everything from DNA to frozen carcasses, to calf mummies.
You’ll also have a PR nightmare procuring female elephants for experimentally breeding mammoths.
Is untreated sewage really safe?
Elephants aren’t human. Would a mammoth brought back from extinction be somebody’s property? What about a Neanderthal?
That is a good question. Answers to this question reflects differences in national cultures.
The US-style ‘my property’-thinking differs from that in some other countries. If someone would try to own a de-extinct Neanderthal, I would be among those openly and strongly objecting that. I do not even like the idea that a de-extinct mammoth would be someones property. This is a cultural difference, as I live in a country where the legislation reflects a cultural and societal will to constrain the greed of individuals, lawyers and companies.
The former area of woolly mammoths is mainly within current Russia and most of the best-quality remains come from that area. I do not know how they would handle the issue. Legislation and practice are different things in Russia - legislation and courts may be used to handle dissidents but if you have good relationships with the rulers, legislation does not constrain your actions too much.
From what I can find, mitochondrial DNA from Columbian mammoths has been sequenced, as well as from other mammoth species. A cell will have thousands of copies of the mitochondrial genome compared to the autosomal genome, so it makes sense as to why the mitochondrial genome is easier to sequence. It looks like there are at least two wooly mammoth whole genomes that have been sequenced.
That said, we have sequenced Neanderthal genomes from samples that were in temperate climates. It may be possible to do the same for the right Columbian mammoth sample.
There are currently services that will clone your pets. It’s expensive, but if you have the money to burn you can have a clone of your favorite dog that just died.
I think most of us probably won’t make a big deal out of this. There may be ethical issues to address with dog cloning, such as the expected health of the clone, but the ethical issues are pretty low on the overall scale. However, if they were cloning a human I think we would get really upset, and rightly so.
I’m trying (unsuccessfully) to make you see that bringing back a Neanderthal is far different morally that bringing back a mammoth. Neanderthals were human beings, and it would not be right to bring them back. Is your country really okay with the idea of bringing them back? Of course you shouldn’t own them, but what do you do with them if you do bring them back?
Not that I disagree in principle, but I thought ’human being’ = homo sapiens
Neanderthals are Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
We are Homo sapiens
https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-neanderthalensis
My taxonomy is being taxed. 
I agree that it would be a different thing. Neanderthals were ‘almost(?)’ humans. Probably I have some Neanderthal genes, so someone could say I am a hybrid between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis. Despite that, I am classified as a human. De-extinction of a Neanderthal would be like bringing one of my distant relatives back.
De-extinction of a fairly advanced, thinking mammal in not terribly far from bringing back humans. You would not necessarily have to think about the ethical problems of human experimentation but I think it would need an ethical evaluation as an animal experiment. Ethical rules for animal experiments are strict in western countries. For example, you could angle a fish for food but as part of an animal experiment, angling would be considered something that may cause considerable suffering to a fish individual and therefore you would have to have very good justification for potentially causing suffering to an animal. De-extinction of a mammoth would likely cause suffering to an individual that has no natural ecosystem or support of other members of the species. There is also the possibility that the de-extinct individual would suffer from some genes not being quite correct (copied from an elephant) or otherwise not functioning as they should in a healthy mammoth.
Is the scientific or societal benefit of bringing back a mammoth greater than the suffering caused to the individuals? If the cost-benefit analysis does not show that the benefit is clearly more than the cost (suffering of the individuals), you either have to stop making such plans or make the experiment in a country that does not have as strict laws. The latter alternative is ethically problematic.
It’s a bit of a gray area. Many consider all species in the Homo genus to be humans, with H. sapiens (us) being anatomically modern humans. However, it is an arbitrary division. The only division in biology that comes close to being objective is the species level, and even then it can get a bit hazy with asexual species.
As for Neanderthals, I think the consensus is on the side of them being a species of their own given the genetic distance between Neanderthals and H. sapiens with some limited interbreeding. However, I do think there is a healthy debate to be had about these distinctions. The ancestral human population split about 500,000 years ago where some populations moved into Europe and Asia while a population stayed in Africa. They evolved separately until humans migrated out of Africa some 50,000 years ago, even evolving their own adaptations to colder climates. At that point there was some interbreeding, but very limited as shown by what genetic evidence we have uncovered to this point. So what do we call this? I think if it were any other group of species we would probably call this speciation. The two groups are anatomically distinct, and there is not free interbreeding between the populations.
Getting back around to the topic, they appeared to have most, if not all, of the characteristics we would recognize as human. They had art, used sophisticated stone tools, appeared to have social groups, and so on. I have every expectation that if we met a Neanderthal today we would instantly see the humanity in their eyes. For this reason, there is absolutely no way we should consider bringing them back. We wouldn’t do this with H. sapiens, so we definitely should not do this with H. neanderthalensis.
Post a picture of yourself or an X-ray of your skull and let us decide.
I evidently have about 2% according to 23 and me:
You inherited a small amount of DNA from your Neanderthal ancestors. Out of the 2,872 variants we tested, we found 262 variants in your DNA that trace back to the Neanderthals.
All together, your Neanderthal ancestry accounts for less than ~2 percent of your DNA.
A child should never be a science experiment.
Neanderthals have earned the right to rest in peace.
Composting IS treatment! It leaves no trace of the “raw material”; the result is indistinguishable from any other soil, especially with modern understanding of what other materials to add for pH balance and fiber. In the system used by the one city I mentioned, where the internal temperature rises to exceed that needed to ignite paper, no bacteria at all survive, not even the bacteria that do the decomposing – until it’s added to “ordinary” soil, it’s sterile.
The only possible unsafe aspect these days is all the medications people take, which is one reason that city manages the compost with the methods they chose – reaching a temperature of 480° F or so breaks down most medications.
The vet here will take DNA from a puppy and preserve it, but not from any adult dog just because of the health issues. The cost is the same as for taking and preserving ova or semen (something I’m pondering doing with Knox before I have to get him ‘clipped’ per the adoption contract; he’s too cute to not have little Knoxes later!).
Just to play devil’s advocate: I recall a science fiction story where it was determined that Neanderthals would be be more suited to a new planet discovered around another star, so the decision was made to "bring them back – and the moral issue was whether adding some homo sapiens DNA if necessary to make them intelligent enough for a modern civilization was acceptable or if they should be left “pure”.
The subtext was that there is no such thing as a “pure” breed, not Neanderthals and not us.
“Earned”? I’m not sure that even makes sense in this context. What if, as in the story I mentioned above, we were to find a planet where they would be a better “fit” than we would – would it be more moral to bring them back and give them such a planet, or to use technology to make the planet adapt to fit homo sapiens?
From an ethical and moral point of view, we would have to ask why we need to populate another planet. If it is a matter of preserving the species then perhaps we could consider such routes. If it is a matter of populating another planet just because we can then that is a very different moral calculus.
As to “pure” breeds, from my reading there would have been genetically isolated neanderthal populations that were separate from African humans for hundreds of thousands of years. Those populations would probably come closest to what you are describing as “pure” breeds. It wasn’t until humans starting moving back out of Africa that there was interbreeding between populations.
Well then, have at it! What about prions from mad cow disease?
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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