Russian scientists revive Ice Age flower

Blackadder · #1 by **Blackadder** » Feb 21, 2012 7:46 am

"An entire flower from the Ice Age has been resurrected by Russian scientists in a pioneering experiment that could pave the way for the revival of other species including the mammoth."

That is just awesome.

More here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9094716/Ice-Age-flower-revival-that-could-lead-to-resurrection-of-mammoth.html

mattwilson · #2 by **mattwilson** » Feb 21, 2012 9:25 am

I have concerns about reviving plants that haven't lived in such a long time, even more so with animals. These are organisms which haven't coexisted with anything in our ecosystem and we don't know what ramifications it could have should they be allowed to re-inhabit the wild, as a case in point I give you Cane toads in Australia.

Obviously this is still a pretty cool piece of science.

trubble76 · #3 by **trubble76** » Feb 21, 2012 9:38 am

mattwilson wrote:I have concerns about reviving plants that haven't lived in such a long time, even more so with animals. These are organisms which haven't coexisted with anything in our ecosystem and we don't know what ramifications it could have should they be allowed to re-inhabit the wild, as a case in point I give you Cane toads in Australia.

Obviously this is still a pretty cool piece of science.

Yep, the Law of Unintended Consequences is a mean bitch, but I'm hoping that these scientists have learnt for previous mistakes.

On the upside, if you buy the missus a bunch of previously extinct flowers, that's definitely worth a blowjob. :naughty2:

DoctorE · #4 by **DoctorE** » Feb 21, 2012 9:40 am

So, seed from ~20 thousand years before creation...eh

mattwilson · #5 by **mattwilson** » Feb 21, 2012 9:44 am

DoctorE wrote:So, seed from ~20 thousand years before creation...eh

I reckon if we ever resurrect an animal that noah left out of the ark god will strike us down :thumbup:

chairman bill · #6 by **chairman bill** » Feb 21, 2012 9:47 am

I think it's amazing. Now when they recreate a mammoth, it'll have something to eat. Rare flowers <nom, nom, nom>

rainbow · #7 by **rainbow** » Feb 21, 2012 10:02 am

DoctorE wrote:So, seed from ~20 thousand years before creation...eh

It is possible that your estimate of the date of creation might not be perfectly accurate.

mattwilson · #8 by **mattwilson** » Feb 21, 2012 10:09 am

rainbow wrote:
DoctorE wrote:So, seed from ~20 thousand years before creation...eh

It is possible that your estimate of the date of creation might not be perfectly accurate.

Whose is?

Garm · #9 by **Garm** » Feb 21, 2012 10:52 am

Thread derail in 3...2...1...

cherubfish · **#10** by **cherubfish** » Feb 21, 2012 5:28 pm

mattwilson wrote:I have concerns about reviving plants that haven't lived in such a long time, even more so with animals. These are organisms which haven't coexisted with anything in our ecosystem and we don't know what ramifications it could have should they be allowed to re-inhabit the wild, as a case in point I give you Cane toads in Australia.

Obviously this is still a pretty cool piece of science.

I am concerned too...
If it haven't coexisted so long, it can act like an invasive species too, or die.
Well being out-competed is not the major problem, but being an invasive species is.

Unless they only contain it in the lab... and that it's seed is not aerosol :scratch:

But plants are capable of many survival skills that animals don't.
Such as... under lab condition, you can generate a haploid plant from the pollen.
Haploid...and it grows

The professor even said that it will even flower,
but I don't understand how it can flower without being diploid/ [even number here]ploid.

Animals don't have that talent...

HughMcB · **#11** by **HughMcB** » Feb 21, 2012 6:01 pm

I don't know yet how I feel about resurrecting extinct species. I mean it just seems a bit pointless really. Certainly most arbitrary.

Horwood Beer-Master · **#12** by **Horwood Beer-Master** » Feb 21, 2012 6:11 pm

mattwilson wrote:I have concerns about reviving plants that haven't lived in such a long time, even more so with animals. These are organisms which haven't coexisted with anything in our ecosystem and we don't know what ramifications it could have should they be allowed to re-inhabit the wild, as a case in point I give you Cane toads in Australia...

Three things spring to my mind here. Firstly, frozen seeds, some of which are bound to be naturally viable, presumably melt out of glaciers and ice sheets all the time. It's a natural process, and no doubt there are plant populations living in particular areas today that owe there existence there to a spell in nature's freezer.
Secondly, did these plants live "such a long time" ago? It's only 30,000 years or so we're talking about. Think of it this way, certain individual trees (such as Yews) can quite easily live up to 5,000 years at the very least, so these flowers may in principle have lived alongside trees only 5 generations distant from trees alive today. So is this really an article about the amazing longevity of seeds? - Or about how amazingly recent the Pleistocene is?
And thirdly, the BBC version of this articles indicates that this species still exists in Siberia anyway. The cloned plants are only slightly different from their modern cousins, and that may well in part be non-genetic for all we know (a consequence of the method of propagation for instance).

So I wouldn't fret about the risk of rampaging campions unbalancing the ecosystem. I would however love one of these in my garden.

Wiðercora · **#13** by **Wiðercora** » Feb 21, 2012 7:09 pm

An entire flower from the Ice Age has been resurrected by Russian scientists in a pioneering experiment that could pave the way for the revival of other species including the mammoth.

Firstly, why would you even want to resurrect the mammoth? Secondly, which species of mammoth? Thirdly, why is the media so bloody obsessed with resurrecting mammoths!?

matt8819 · **#14** by **matt8819** » Feb 21, 2012 7:13 pm

Wiðercora wrote:
An entire flower from the Ice Age has been resurrected by Russian scientists in a pioneering experiment that could pave the way for the revival of other species including the mammoth.

Firstly, why would you even want to resurrect the mammoth? Secondly, which species of mammoth? Thirdly, why is the media so bloody obsessed with resurrecting mammoths!?

Because it would be a big story. :coffee:

HughMcB · **#15** by **HughMcB** » Feb 21, 2012 7:16 pm

Let's just bring back neanderthals and see if they really do have sex with homo sapiens. We could create a whole new porn category. Inter-species.

Horwood Beer-Master · **#16** by **Horwood Beer-Master** » Feb 21, 2012 8:14 pm

Wiðercora wrote:
An entire flower from the Ice Age has been resurrected by Russian scientists in a pioneering experiment that could pave the way for the revival of other species including the mammoth.

Firstly, why would you even want to resurrect the mammoth? Secondly, which species of mammoth? Thirdly, why is the media so bloody obsessed with resurrecting mammoths!?

"Why not", "whichever" and "why not" would be my replies. :dunno:

HughMcB wrote:Let's just bring back neanderthals and see if they really do have sex with homo sapiens. We could create a whole new porn category. Inter-species.

"Click here for hot 'Thal-on-Sapien action. Featuring all your favourate short, broad-chested, big-browed, chinless beauties, all gagging to turn some Sapien cock - erectus"

laklak · **#17** by **laklak** » Feb 21, 2012 8:17 pm

HughMcB wrote:Let's just bring back neanderthals and see if they really do have sex with homo sapiens. We could create a whole new porn category. Inter-species.

1,000,000 years old enough for you?

HughMcB · **#18** by **HughMcB** » Feb 21, 2012 9:00 pm

If neanderthals looked like her I'd be leading the research team myself.

cherubfish · **#19** by **cherubfish** » Feb 22, 2012 12:45 am

Wiðercora wrote:
An entire flower from the Ice Age has been resurrected by Russian scientists in a pioneering experiment that could pave the way for the revival of other species including the mammoth.

Firstly, why would you even want to resurrect the mammoth? Secondly, which species of mammoth? Thirdly, why is the media so bloody obsessed with resurrecting mammoths!?

Perhaps there are dreams about researching on evolution by regenerating already extinct species.

This flower, being "not that old", could be a small step towards what they consider a very decent goal.

But my opinion is that, unless you can fully generate lab conditions that were at least similar to what used to happen without a single significant error, generating the flower is almost pointless.
Even the air components of that time (percentage of oxygen) is significantly different.

That's why I used the word "dream" in my first sentence.

Animavore · **#20** by **Animavore** » Feb 22, 2012 12:57 am

HughMcB wrote:Let's just bring back neanderthals and see if they really do have sex with homo sapiens. We could create a whole new porn category. Inter-species.

Don't we already have that? :ask: