Louis CK, as always, pitch perfect.

We're a shitty mammal.

Again with this cloning shit.

I know I just ranted about this recently-ish but seriously, can we talk about why everyone is so obsessed with seeing a woolly mammoth alive and walking around?? (I'm serious, I'd actually like to hear a solid reason why, feel free to leave it in the comments section). Ok so some scientists found a sample of "well-preserved bone marrow" from a mammoth which is awesome insomuch as we can look at the DNA a little bit better and probably understand its history and evolution a little bit more. However, scientists from Japan and Russia (and I'm not singling those countries out, I know they're in the US and elsewhere, too) want to use this relatively "better" sample of DNA to clone a mammoth. Their timeframe for success? 5 years. How do they plan to go about doing that? How else: implanting the magical nuclei from the marrow into the egg cells of an African elephant (Loxodonta africanus), a closely related species (I've previously discussed this JurassicPark-ification of anything and everything here). 

Y'all have heard statistics on the success rate of cloning, right? 100%, works like a charm each and every time. Riiiight. It's actually alarmingly unsuccessful (rates never reaching double digits). When you hear in the news that scientists have successfully cloned a sheep or a mouse, many, many fails preceded that (Which tangentially makes me wonder why the people who picket Planned Parenthood aren't also picketing science labs. Every life is important or whatever. Not to give them fucking ideas, but it IS strange that those two groups are usually on opposite sides of the politico-socio spectrums, right?). 

Now I'd like you to recall the "test" species we're using in this scenario to, you know, gather ova and implant with the rainbow nuclei: AFRICAN ELEPHANTS. 

Gestation period on an African elephant? One year. 

How often does the average female African elephant reproduce? Once every 5 years. 

Population status of the African elephant? Vulnerable, ie: we've got some left, you know, enough that we're keeping an eye out for poaching, but not enough that we're putting them in Al Gore movies. 

(And someone please tell me why when I was looking up these facts, a 6 grader's report on elephants came up in Google search terms above the damned wiki page #somuchfail). 

My point being, this is not an easy project or even a "sure thing" project. It's seemingly a novelty project that will cost millions and millions of dollars and an incredible amount of time and effort. And for WHAT? Even if every single factor comes together in an orgasmically successful way and a teensy woolly embryo is injected into an elephant's lady parts, a year-long gestation under less-than-ideal conditions seems outrageous. AND EVEN IF... remember the pyrenean ibex? Tragically died after 7 beautiful minutes spent on earth trying to breathe. Whatever. Canada got everything right in the 70's. Let's just leave it at that, ok?

Bible-belt bound. Like I'm going there. I'm not tied up with bibles. Yet.

No podcast this week, kiddies, as I have actually lost my voice. Not spiritually or metaphorically; I have laryngitis.

Also, I'm moving to Texas this week sooo... there's that.

For now enjoy this talk by Chris Mooney on his book The Republican War on Science, which we discussed on last week's episode.


Chris Mooney from Books Inc on FORA.tv

Baba Brinkman + Rachel Maddow = epic win

Famed rapper Baba Brinkman's performs on Rachel Maddow's Geek Week segment in 2010. Check out his work here.

 

Large Hadron Rap - science made...sexy?

Here's a "win" for science PR. The video was originally released to spread info on how the LHC works, but also helped(s) promote CERN's Sixtrack project, which you can participate in!

 

"And then you put a bandaid on your dyke"

FIRST PODCAST IS UP, BITCHES!

Find it on iTunes here.

Or RSS here.

Yes, I know there are audio, visual, content issues. We're working on it, ok? Just enjoy for now.


Oh, and here is Richard Dawkins reading hate mail, as promised.