Friday, December 05, 2008

Meanwhile, in mammoth land

Over the last few months I've neglected woolly mammoth news because I was distracted by the election and my mother's health. It's time to get back to work.

Nicholas Wade was on the Colbert Report talking about cloning woolly mammoths. Colbert asked the obvious question of why we don't just staple shag carpeting to an elephant? There are numerous technical problems involved, not the least of which is possible objections from the elephant. Shag carpet has the wrong texture and length and doesn't have the three layer architecture that mammoth hair had. Due to the current downturn in construction, the carpet industry doesn't have nearly the resources to engage in the massive research effort that would be necessary to develop mammoth carpet. It probably would be cheaper and faster just to stick with cloning mammoths.

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