More than a bitcoin: the Long Now coin for genetic rescue of extinct species, like the Woolly Mammoth

10 responses to “More than a bitcoin: the Long Now coin for genetic rescue of extinct species, like the Woolly Mammoth”

1. 

   jurvetson

   Nov 15, 2013 at 6:23 am

   The friendly face of Ice Age… Welcome to Pleistocene Park =)
   

   Plenty of ancient mammoth DNA has been recovered from frozen tissue samples (but it is biologically nonviable and fragmented). It has already been sequenced into a data set. Genome-editing techniques (like George Church’s CRISPR) will convert that data to working genes and edit them into the living DNA of an Asian elephant to get a “mammoth” egg, which gets planted in a female Asian elephant in standard cloning mode. After many tries and adjustments, we begin to get live births of baby “mammoths.” Here is more information on that last step (demonstrated with birds: converting the gonads of a chicken so that when they mate, they lay a falcon egg) from Stewart Brand’s DeExtinction TED Talk.

   I like the date… The coin comes with a 10,000-year membership for founding funders… =)
   

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2. 

   scleroplex

   Nov 15, 2013 at 12:29 pm

   me like 🙂

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3. 

   gsikich1

   Nov 15, 2013 at 1:07 pm

   Interesting, but they went extinct for a reason don’t you agree? Reviving them might pose some threats and unintended consequences that we have not considered.

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4. 

   scleroplex

   Nov 15, 2013 at 4:21 pm

   we should bring the dodo back first.
   we know it went extinct entirely due to europeans.

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5. 

   jurvetson

   Nov 15, 2013 at 5:35 pm

   Yes, they plan to bring the passenger pigeon back first, and are making good progress.

   Here is some interesting ecosystem background from Sergey Zimov’s essay "Pleistocene Park: Return of the Mammoth’s Ecosystem"

   In the Pleistocene, grassland ecosystems occupied about half of the world’s land mass…. Holocene vegetation, in contrast, is dominated by unproductive moss and shrubs. This type of vegetation does not transpire enough moisture to dry out the soil. Moss does not even have roots. This leads to wet conditions conducive to the growth of mosses, which account for a substantial proportion of the northern Siberian biomass. Water-saturated soils inhibit decomposition of biomass and therefore the availability of nutrients to support plant growth. What’s more, mosses insulate the ground efficiently–a 20-cm layer of moss prevents the underlying frozen soil from thawing. This also has the effect of sequestering nutrients and preventing their cycling through the ecosystem. All of these factors indicate that moss communities, once they are in place, create and sustain their own environment and do not depend so much on particular climate conditions. They are quite vulnerable to physical disturbance, however, and this is where their ecological connection to herbivores comes in.

   Northern Siberia will influence the character of global climate change. If greenhouse gas-induced warming continues, the permafrost will melt. At present, the frozen soils lock up a vast store of organic carbon. With an average carbon content of 2.5%, the soil of the mammoth ecosystem harbors about 500 gigatons of carbon, 2.5 times that of all rainforests combined. Moreover, this carbon is the relatively labile product of plant roots that were incorporated from productive steppe vegetation during the Pleistocene. As soon as the ice melts and the soil thaws, microbes will begin converting this long-sequestered soil carbon into carbon dioxide under aerobic conditions or into methane under anaerobic conditions. The release of these gases will only exacerbate and accelerate the greenhouse effect.

   Preventing this scenario from happening could be facilitated by restoring Pleistocene-like conditions in which grasses and their root systems stabilize the soil. The albedo–or ability to reflect incoming sunlight skyward–of such ecosystems is high, so warming from solar radiation also is reduced. And with lots of herbivores present, much of the wintertime snow would be trampled, exposing the ground to colder temperatures that prevent ice from melting. All of this suggests that reconstructed grassland ecosystems, such as the ones we are working on in Pleistocene Park, could prevent permafrost from thawing and thereby mitigate some negative consequences of climate warming.

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6. 

   scleroplex

   Nov 15, 2013 at 7:00 pm

   which will be negated by the tax-subsidized rape of prairie grasslands to grow corn for ethanol……

   http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Ethanol-push-taking-toll-o...
   http://www.sfgate.com/business/energy/article/Ethanol-helps-spur...

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7. 

   aloof lock

   Nov 15, 2013 at 8:23 pm

   Fascinating stuff. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that the entire planet will become inhabitable eventually anyway. I’d just as soon it happened later rather than sooner! All the same, if saucer tickets become available, I’d advise booking them for your descendants with all haste.

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8. 

   jurvetson

   Nov 16, 2013 at 6:12 am

   and as I shared it today at SynBioBeta
   

   [http://www.flickr.com/photos/scleroplex] — Larry Lessig in Republic Lost: each $1 billion that ADM makes on ethanol costs consumers $30 billion.
   Lessig’s point is that the ADMs of the world get the multi-billion dollar subsidies, and earmarks, and tax code changes completely independent of the voting process. It’s a gift economy among those with relationship capital.

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9. 

   scleroplex

   Nov 16, 2013 at 6:35 am

   yup.

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10. 

    TrombaMarina

    Jan 27, 2014 at 9:38 pm

    If large land mammals were hunted to extinction by humans they may prove to be remarkably tasty! What? Old habits die hard.

    In terms of raw scientific bragging rights, bringing back extinct species is uber-cool. For long-term biodiversity it may be more important to figure out how to prevent future human-caused extinctions than to bring back species that have already gone. It will be interesting to see which species we can sustain the necessary habitat for in the long term, even if we can bring them back temporarily. Not to mention poaching like what is happening with the African rhino. With the price of ivory being what it is, guarding Mastadons from poachers may prove impossible.

    Others species, like the Polio virus, can go extinct any time and stay that way – I’m OK with that! In terms of passenger pigeons, we did hunt them to extinction once. The bird that has largely taken their place – the European Rock Dove – is not exactly our nation’s most beloved bird. I’ve heard them described as "Rats of the Skies" though I don’t mind them so much – they’re actually quite tasty! 🙂

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