You know how sometimes you just let the kids run around until they tire themselves out? That’s kind of how I’ve felt about these scientists that are trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth. Every year or so, it seems like one of these stories pops up where I’m just at my house thinking “those rascals are at it again.” I keep hoping that maybe one of these days they’ll grow weary in their efforts and give it up. But, no sir – today is not that day. We’re actually revisiting the conversation because there’s a new development in science’s race to resurrect the woolly mammoth.
A biotech company that hopes to resurrect extinct species said Wednesday that it has reached an important milestone: the creation of a long-sought kind of stem cell for the closest living relative of the woolly mammoth.
Okay, you guys have had your fun. We get it – cloning and genetic technology, whatever its proper term is (I’m not a scientist), has advanced efforts and we’re close to doing some truly fucked up shit. That’s impressive. I’m not going to argue with that. You’ve shown us what you’re capable of. Point proven – you guys can go home now.
I mean, what are we even doing here? What’s the point of it? I feel like I write the same thing every time I talk about this so I’m going to have to resist taking the bait in the future. But, I feel sorry for that cloned woolly mammoth. Y’all just gonna create him in a lab and then what? Put him in a zoo somewhere? Release him to the frozen tundra just to die? What application does this have – I mean, if you want to test this in your efforts to ultimately clone or resurrect humans (different kind of fucked up conversation), then why does it have to be an ancient animal that was native to lands with harsh conditions? Couldn’t you just start with like a mouse or something? And, if your efforts are to ultimately clone animals for food…sheesh, this is getting too dark for me. It’s a bright sunny day here in Nashville. I don’t want to cloud the vibes with this story anymore.
I don’t know – something about this whole effort raises some major ethical concerns. Honestly, it reminds me of why I got into writing instead of science. Y’all would get me in that lab and in five minutes, I’d be swinging on somebody screaming about how we learned nothing from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein.
Editor’s Note: I couldn’t find a decent free-to-use photo of a woolly mammoth for this article’s featured image, so I just used the closest thing I could find that I own the rights to, which is a picture of me.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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