Let's bring back the Woolly Mammoth

A collaborative effort by scientists at Penn State and some other notable institutions, recently released their findings on sequencing the DNA of the mammoth. According to their study, they have determined about 4 billion bases of the mammoth of which 3.3 billion nucleotide bases belong to the woolly mammoth species. The DNA is fragmented and imperfect, but could they bring the mammoth to life? Yes, they say, for $10 million...

There is no present way to synthesize a genome-size chunk of mammoth DNA, let alone to develop it into a whole animal. But Dr. Schuster said a shortcut would be to modify the genome of an elephant’s cell at the 400,000 or more sites necessary to make it resemble a mammoth’s genome. The cell could be converted into an embryo and brought to term by an elephant, a project he estimated would cost some $10 million.

Some of the opinion pieces I've read are not in favor of bringing the animal back. The NYTimes editorial wrote...

The first mammoth would be a lonely zoo freak, vulnerable to diseases unknown to its ancestors. To live a full and rewarding life, it would need other mammoths to hang out with, a mate to produce a family and a suitable place to live. The sort of environment it is used to — the frigid wastes of Siberia and North America — are disappearing all too fast.

The Chemical and Engineering News editorial was also not in favor of the idea....

I have qualms about bringing back woolly mammoths. I hope it doesn't happen because, not only are mammoths extinct, the world they inhabited is extinct, too. There is no place for them, and it seems cruel to bring them back just so we can stare at them.

Instead of resurrecting species our ancestors helped drive to extinction, I think we should be working desperately to curb the mass extinction we ourselves are driving today.

Of course it is cruel on some level to bring back a woolly mammoth to life, but who says it has to be lonely? Bring back 2 of them, a male and a female, for example. I feel the pros outweigh the cons. Think of all one could learn from the process of resurrecting an extinct species. I think it would be a marvelous scientific achievement. We are trying our best to save dying species currently, so why don't we try bringing back an extinct species? Let's be realistic here. The experiment is not going to be some out of control 'Jurassic Park' type scene, where 'nature finds a way' to reproduce within the time span of a ridiculous movie and start attacking children at the gift shop. It's going to be heavily monitored and if successful, could give us clues along the way as to how we can improve our lives and the the lives of dying species around us.

Who wants to look at cave drawings anyway. Let's bring the mammoth back...