If I had a $1,000,000...

I would buy a Mammoth?  Actually, that's not entirely true.  But scientists at Penn State say they could do it for $10,000,000 (See nytimes.com article).  It's good to see that some people are ignoring one of the latest activities to make it on to the list of deadly sins.

As someone who engages in genetic engineering on an almost daily basis, I am aware of how easy it would be to create genetically modified anything.  Think Jurassic Park.   Consider an Encino Man, but instead of liberating him from an ice block he would emerge from the womb of an in vitro fertilized of a woman.  Who wants to see a live dodo?

Aren't they cute?

Scientists produce genetically modified mice, pigs, sheep, worms, plants, and bacteria everyday using very similar tools to the ones it would take to do a mammoth resurrection.  Some of it falls under the "Wouldn't it be cool..." category of thinking.  But the vast majority of "GM" organisms are used to improve our everyday lives.   In crop science food plants are being created that can survive in deserts, through floods, and in barren soil. GM plants may also be used to enrich nutrients in the soil, add extra nutrients to foods (think vitamin-enriched bananas for third-world populations... a.k.a. biofortification), and increase productivity per plant (double the food for half the amount of land). Genetically modified organisms are also used as tools to study how genes work, when they get turned on and off, how they combine to make ears, hearts, spinal cords, grey hair, cancer, Alzeimer's disease, and even thought processes, as in the emerging field of behavioral genetics.  

But before you say "my genes told me to", think about this.  We have the tools now to begin to look at some disease causing genes and alter those genes in embryos. And if we can alter disease genes, we can alter other genes as well, some that may fall under the "want" rather than the "need" category.  We also have the tools, as in the aforementioned mammoth, to potentially regain extinct species, and not just large mammals, but bacteria and plants as well.  This gives us the ability to reverse extinction, bend the rules of natural selection, and turn back the clock of evolution.

The questions is not whether we can, but what would we do with it if we did?  And how could it be regulated?  First, let me say I am in favor of genetic and stem cell research.  But, I am also in favor of regulation of the scientific field.  However, thus far, the committees that have been convened have consisted largely of politicians, lobbyists, and religious leaders... what about the scientists?  Not that the former's opinions aren't good, but we should let all parties have a voice.  Let's discuss...

Until then, who's got an extra 10 mil lying around?  I want to meet me a mammoth.