h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This just in: For the first time in more than 100 years there has been a new find of an old : Jevgenij Salinder, a russian schoolboy has found the remains of a 30.000 year old male in the Taimir region some 3.000 kilometres north of Moscow where his parents w*rk in a weather station

* lights BBQ*

aye, must be well hung

the meat, that is

Probably a little freezer burnt

Stick it the micro.

The scientists will undoubtedly try to clone it and implant its DNA in elephants so as to bring the back from extinction.

what if they implanted it in - say - a chihuahua

They will have a hard time bringing it back from extinction unless they also find living tissue in a female specimen... just sayin'...

Do clones have to have the same gender as the original organisms?
If so, can scientists overcome this?

Of course. They're clones.

Clones have exactly the same genes as the originals; that includes the X and Y chromosomes that determine gender, among other things.

But here's my question: Since the make of the species has one X and one Y, couldn't some clever scientist transport the X from a neighboring cell, put it into a cell with an Y and a Y, and then delete the Y, producing a female?Just wondering....

For that matter, isn't a Y chromosome just an X chromosome with one leg missing

Oh Not a leg, a rib!

Hi Clare! Nice to meet you


I was listening to a related story today, about mouse babies being produced from skin cells turned into stem cells and then into oocytes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19827287

...various reflections...




There were still wooly mammoths in Siberia as late as about 3000 BCE.

Their extinction there was apparently related somehow to the major sea level increase incident that occurred at the same time, the one that drowned the megalithic ruins on Malta.




I don't know quite what would happen if one were to splice wooly mammoth DNA into the chihuahua.

I have been acquainted with a litter of pups that were half chihuahua and half grey timber wolf.

One of them was left handed, when chained to a tall post would run 'round and 'round it counter-clockwise at the highest speed it could muster until it slammmed into the post and then strain at the chain.

Two were right handed, would do the same as the first, only clockwise.

The fourth was ambidextrous, would first run one until it had completely wrapped the chain around the post and slammed up against it and then reverse the process... ...seemed tireless.

The pups apparently inherited most of their temperament from their excessively affectionate sire, the chihuahua.




On reversing genders with clones, its easy with turtles and crocodiles and some of the other egg laying reptiles, since gender with them depends entirely on the temperature at which the eggs are incubated.

For example, it should be relatively easy that way to clone a number of females from Lonesome George, the last surviving member of one of the species of Galapagos tortoises and preserve the species that way.




...by the by, the X - Y chromosomal determination of gender only works that way for mammals.

For birds, its the reverse, X + Y produces a female, rather than a male as with mammals, and the double X a male rather than a female...

Thanks, ITIWBS. Your scientific expertise is much appreciated. .

I read somewhere that for just $600.00, you can a bunny thast glows green in the dark, owing to a jellyfish gene that was implanted into it when it was just an egg.

I bet Elmer Fudd bought the lot