Russians Recover Fresh Flowing Mammoth Blood

[wrightway]

Probably, I can't remember the title at the moment but that sounds right. The health problems were brought up near the end of the novel. Most of them due to the rapid way hybrids age.

The history channel had something on some Russian experiments for the same thing. I think it was covered during an episode of Monster Quest (which I only ever give credence to because they actually found something once).

I'm not waving off the difficulties, or the ethics, I'm just saying human beings always seem to find a way to do things we just shouldn't ever do.

[Random Gal]

An elephant cannot birth a mammoth any more than a human can birth a chimpanzee.

To be fair, human/chimpanzee hasn't been tested either. Not that I think such an experiment would be ethical or that anybody would (or should) ever try it, just that we don't know whether it's possible.

Humans and chimps are closer genetically than horses and zebras, and zorses are not an unheard of thing. Michael Crichton wrote a book that dealt with the ethical complications of such a hybrid, would something of mixed human DNA qualify for human rights and the like. It's a decent read.

Humans and chimps share a lot of DNA, but like all non-human great apes, chimps have 24 chromosomes, while humans only have 23 (due to chromosomes 2p and 2q fusing together into chromosome 2 at some point in human evolution), so that would be a pretty major roadblock to producing viable offspring.

Elephants and mammoths have the same problem, as mammoths had 58 chromosomes (29 pairs) while elephants only have 56 (28 pairs). However, other species with differing chromosome counts can still hybridize.

The question isn't whether they can hybridize, though, but whether a cloned mammoth could be carried to term by an elephant.