
Welcome to Pleistocene Park - waqasaday
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleistocene-park/517779/?single_page=true
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ovi256
I was shocked by the casual mention of genetic engineering:

"using crispr, the genome-editing technology, they began flying along the
rails of the Asian elephant’s double helix, switching in mammoth traits. They
are trying to add cold-resistant hemoglobin and a full-body layer of
insulating fat. They want to shrink the elephant’s flapping, expressive ears
so they don’t freeze in the Arctic wind, and they want to coat the whole
animal in luxurious fur. By October 2014, Church and his team had succeeded in
editing 15 of the Asian elephant’s genes."

Sure, this project is toying with making an elephant more cold resistant. But
if the technology spreads, how long until we get sharpened pathogens and pests
?

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taneq
Next step, make them tiny! (a la the phyletic dwarf elephants in Peter F.
Hamilton's "Great North Road").

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freshyill
John Hammond used a tiny genetically-engineered elephant to impress investors
in "Jurassic Park".

[http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/wiki/Pachyderm_Portfolio](http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/wiki/Pachyderm_Portfolio)

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cfontes
"Modify the genomes of elephants like those, as nature modified their
ancestors’ across hundreds of thousands of years, and you can make your own
mammoths."

Yeah, right... They make it sound like putting together a child puzzle.

The differences between those 2 genomes can be vast and even if we did know it
100%, it would take a lot of effort to "craft" this DNA into a usable one and
after that how would you have variance? You would need to craft at least a
couple dozens randomly changing it so they can breed or would we clone the
same one over and over again?

I think it's interesting to bring it back, I would even like to see it but it
is one weird of a project to say the least.

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dang
I've re-upvoted your post because of its relatively substantive core, but
please don't lead with snark like "Yeah, right" in comments here. It degrades
the community and encourages others to do worse.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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gonational
Fun fact: The first definition of "snark" is _an imaginary animal_...

...which is also, coincidentally, the subject of the comment :)

But, on a serious note: I don't consider "Yeah, right...", followed by an
explanation, to be too snarky.

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m3kw9
Is this a precursor to a real life Jurassic Park?

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moneytide1
No need to "clone".

A wooly mammoth is just an elephant that spent several generations in colder
than average weather.

Evolve the wool to insulate.

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bovermyer
I have no idea whether this will work or not, or if it will have unintended
side effects.

I'm more interested in another topic briefly touched on in the article. Has
anyone produced a theoretical map of a post-apocalyptic "hot Earth?"

