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Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,076

Modified Versions of life forms.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170221 … -two-years

A project to bring back the extinct woolly mammoth is underway, but it will take many years - and it will not be a mammoth, exactly

So, I guess the idea is to use Asian Elephants as the starting template, and to graft genes from Mammoths into the DNA of them.

Things like small ears, long fur, fat, two fingers on the end of the trunk, and something to do with the hemoglobin in it's blood.

About Mammoth blood, and the circulatory system:
http://www.livescience.com/6409-woolly- … -cold.html

From reading this it appears that they will be able to give Mammoth Hemoglobin the their creation, but I think they will not be able to modify the circulatory system, unless they eventually completely replace the parts of Asian Elephant DNA, that is not identical to Mammoth DNA.

Other Arctic animals today, such as reindeer and musk-ox, have a "counter-current" blood system. Essentially the blood vessels taking the warm, oxygen-laden arterial blood down into the legs and feet pass very close to the veins carrying colder, venous blood back to be re-oxygenated.  The close contact between the two types of vessels allows the arterial blood to pass its warmth on to the venous blood headed back to the heart and lungs. This evolutionary system keeps the warmth in the core of the animal's body and reduces heat loss due to the cold climate, while still allowing the arterial blood to take its oxygen to the extremities.

The justification for reviving a Mammoth similar creature, is that actually the artic and sub arctic are not functioning today as was natural before the Mammoths went extinct.

It is believed now that a vast grassland existed on the permafrost, and not nearly as much of the Tiaga forest.  The Mammoths would have knocked down the small trees, and so given grass favor.  Supposedly they would also have caused the permafrost to be colder, which is something we want now, if there is indeed a greenhouse effect.  The Mammoths also fertilized the environment.  When they went extinct, grasses went away, and boggy acid mossy life took over.

Mammoth_Steppe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_steppe

During the Last Glacial Maximum, the mammoth steppe was the Earth’s most extensive biome. It spanned from Spain eastwards across Eurasia to Canada and from the arctic islands southwards to China.[2][3][4][5][6] It had a cold, dry climate,[7][6] the vegetation was dominated by palatable high-productivity grasses, herbs and willow shrubs,[3][6][8] and the animal biomass was dominated by the bison, horse, and the woolly mammoth.[7] This ecosystem covered wide areas of the northern part of the globe, thrived for approximately 100,000 years without major changes and then suddenly became all but extinct about 12,000 years ago.[7]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/0 … 44660.html

Humans Blamed For Extinction Of Mammoths, Mastodons In New Study

So humans killed off the Mammoths and other creatures, and that killed the Mammoth Steppe about 12,000 years ago.

So, when did the last ice age end?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period

The last glacial period, popularly known as the Ice Age, was the most recent glacial period, which occurred from c. 110,000 to 11,700 years ago.

So, that is a co-incidence, the Mammoth Steppe ended 12,000 years ago, along with the Mammoths, and the ice age ended 11,700 years ago.

I think I can solve the puzzle, but of course I am going with the bias that humans killed off the Mammoths, that killed the Mammoth Steppe, and when the Mammoth Steppe died, the Earth warmed up.

The authors of some of the articles I have linked to cite Mammoths as stomping down the snow, and so causing the permafrost to freeze deeper.  I am sure that was true.  But....

Evergreen trees are solar collectors.

So, before the death of the Mammoth Steppe, a vast highly reflective snow covered grassy plain in the fall, winter, and spring.

After the death of the Mammoth Steppe, in the warmer areas, endless solar collectors (Evergreen Trees) poking above the snow pack year around, and much less light reflected off of the surface of the Earth in those areas.

So, humans terraformed the Earth, when they killed off the Mammoths!

So, that leaves us with something for Earth, and maybe something for Mars.

For the Earth, apparently we can hope to get the Mammoth Steppe back, and so cool down the Earth, and lower sea levels.

So, for Mars, if it can be extensively terraformed, could it support some version of a Mammoth Steppe someday?

Granted, we kind of want to warm Mars up, but the Mammoth Steppe Boime might do good things for the moisture situation on a terraformed Mars.  You would choose a colder climate that would support productive grassland, and in return have less problems with aridity.

Furthermore you would have less water covered surface and more "Land", since with a colder climate Mars would better retain ice caps.

So, we are apparently entering an age of organism modification capabilities, and so I would presume that the creatures from the Mammoth Steppe would be further modified to deal with a terraformed Martian environment.

Which is only touching the surface of what might be done with the technology.

This is far more speculative:

For instance could there someday be "Plants with ammonia antifreeze in their tissues, so that frost would not be significant?
Could they grow roots into frozen soils?  Could they be adapted to photosynthesize at temperatures below the freezing point of water?  Lichens can.

Just saying.

Last edited by Void (2017-02-24 18:07:31)

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Done.

Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,076

Re: Modified Versions of life forms.

Well, I am really excited about this one.

http://www.pleistocenepark.ru/en/

    Pleistocene Park is a major initiative that includes an attempt to restore the mammoth steppe ecosystem, which was dominant in the Arctic in the late Pleistocene. The initiative requires replacement of the current unproductive northern ecosystems by highly productive pastures which have both a high animal density and a high rate of biocycling.

See now, the Russians can be pretty sharp, and a good asset on a team.  We should have a different attitude towards them.  My point being that due to the cold war, the USA got too entangled in western European ways of thinking which are not American actually.  But now we are being told that we are western, and the western means neo fascist behaviors.  No thanks! I will be American, and that means I will look for good from Latin peoples and Slavic/Russian peoples.  I will see what is good to have and I will politely adopt it if allowed.

So anyway, we have an opportunity for a control system.  Forget putting aerosols in the atmosphere,  forget trying to get Carbon out of the atmosphere.

What we will be dealing with is a population peak which is yet to come.  Extra CO2 in the atmosphere means that you need less of our precious water to grow crops, as the plants can keep their stomata closed tighter, and still get their required Carbon from the atmosphere.

A better investment is the Pleistocene Park is a major initiative, along with the Mammoth restoration project.

And along with that to log off say ~50% of the Tiaga forests in the northern hemisphere.

If that wood can be kept largely as manufactured goods, then you remove that Carbon for a prolonged period from the ecosystem.

As for the pseudo-Mammoths, if they become real, you can control the numbers.  They are essentially robot gardeners.
Imagine huge spaces in the northern hemisphere where Mammoth, Horses (Cold Adapted Varieties), Bison, Moose, Muskox, Reindeer roam free. 

And this to kill the evergreen trees which are likely warming up our planet.  I am not a greenhouse gasses skeptic.  I think some effect exists, but it appears that humans have been messing with the planet for at least 12,000 years.

We don't need to push the planet into an ice age, we can keep burning Carbon, if we restore the Mammoth Steppe, to offset those effects by reflecting sunshine back into space.

So, we can have it all.

Isn't that nice!

Last edited by Void (2017-02-24 23:16:52)

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Done.

Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,076

Re: Modified Versions of life forms.

A continuation....

http://www.geocurrents.info/place/russi … oth-steppe

Yet a wide array of large mammals thrive in central and northern Siberia, and do so without recourse to hibernation. Not only arctic creatures like reindeer and musk oxen, but even horses survive easily on natural fodder throughout the long and bitter winters. (Such horses, it is true, are of the cold-adapted Yakutian breed.) Bison also prosper in such an environment, and evidently camels can do so as well (Bactrian camels, not dromedaries). And according to Sergei Zimov, Director of Russia’s Northeast Science Station, lions, leopards, and even hyenas could survive and reproduce through most of Siberia, even in the particularly harsh northeast. As he notes, lions have long been kept outdoors all year with no apparent harm in the Novosibirsk zoo, where the average January low temperature is -4 F (-20 C).
Zimov is interested in mammalian adaptation to cold for a practical reason, as he would actually like to introduce such animals to northeastern Siberia. Although the prospect of releasing hyenas on the banks of the Kolyma River might seem to many an insane effort to engineer nature by spreading exotic species, Zimov would counter that he is rather seeking to restore nature and heal the wounds brought on by the Quaternary (or Pleistocene) extinction event, which took away much of the world’s megafauna (animals weighing more than 44 kg/100 lbs)—a catastrophe in which humans probably played a significant role.

Source: http://www.geocurrents.info/place/russi … z4ZiynC2SY

I question some of the statements, such as that summers were too cold for trees to grow.  Perhaps.  However with the sea level lower, and so the seas more remote, I think the winters would be colder than now, and perhaps the summers warmer than you might expect.  But I am willing to be corrected on that.  I think a more "Contenintal" climate could be expected.

The Albedo of the Fall, Winter, and Spring would be high.  The Summer Albedo much lower, and in the absence of large scale Tiaga forests, I would expect increased winds.  I am going to stick with the notion that humans killed and ate the Megafauna, and then the vast grassland turned into acid swampy tiaga forest.

I do not think that the end of the ice age caused the Tiaga forest, I think instead that the Tiaga Forest caused the end of the ice age.

The Trees would alter the climate by projecting above the snow pack, lowering the Albedo, and also reducing the wind speeds.

All that is required to maintain a grassland against forest is animals that destroy the trees, wildfires, and perhaps diseases which attack such trees.

(It happens that I have a particular interest in this topic).

Last edited by Void (2017-02-25 12:00:22)

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Done.