Irish Eyes: Cloning Woolly Mammoths

There are some strange fates that can await you in this world. For example you could be walking the frozen tundras of Siberia, with your friends and relations 22,000 years ago, only to find yourself run over by a glacier and frozen solid.

Cleverly or accidentally dying in just the right way for your old tusks to protrude above the surface at just such a time when those pesky animals which wiped out your species out in the first place have learnt to make you alive again.

Cloning woolly mammoths. Playing hopsotch with extinction. Mammoths in Dublin. It could be bigger than the world's biggest pint (the world's biggest pint? - ask Guinness, apparently it is more than five pints - but that means its not a pint anymore it's five pints - ah shut up and don't ruin a billboard).

How much would it cost to buy a strand of complete mammoth DNA? Given that there are millions and millions of pieces of DNA in a mammoth they should be be going for quite reasonable prices.

All you need after that is a female elephant. And how hard can that be? Apparently you can order them through Harrods.

The thing is, cloning is a cinch. Nothing to it really, it is a lot easier than trying to make a pig with chicken wings.

When you think about it there is no end to cloning is there?

You could just go on and on. It could revolutionise the family.

Of course cloning people is quite repulsive as there are more than enough already. Taking a sample from a bleeding statue of Jesus in Bolivia, extracting the DNA and cloning it could be on the other hand a whole different story.

Call it performance art and watch the elephant dung hit the painting. It all ties in nicely.

Next week: cloning the weather..... Greg Meylan

Irish Eyes is an occasional column from Dublin Scoop Greg Meylan - feedback to paloona@yahoo.com.

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