ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Hendrik Poinar - Evolutionary geneticist
Hendrik Poinar is a geneticist and biological anthropologist who focuses on extracting ancient DNA. He currently has his sights set on sequencing the genome of the woolly mammoth -- and cloning it.

Why you should listen

As a child Hendrik Poinar never imagined that the insects his father kept around the house, extinct and preserved in amber, could someday be brought to life. Well that's exactly what Poinar has devoted his career to doing. Today he is a molecular evolutionary geneticist and biological anthropologist at McMaster University in Ontario, where he is the principal investigator at the Ancient DNA Centre. Poinar's focus is on extracting and preserving DNA from paleontological remains -- precisely what he thought impossible as a kid.

And Poinar's newest project is much, much bigger than those insects from his childhood: He wants to bring back the woolly mammoth. In 2006 he and his team started working on sequencing the mammoth genome, based on DNA extracted from well-preserved remains found in Yukon and Siberia. With the mapping nearly complete, Poinar will next turn to engineering an animal very closely resembling the woolly mammoth.

More profile about the speaker
Hendrik Poinar | Speaker | TED.com
TEDxDeExtinction

Hendrik Poinar: Bring back the woolly mammoth!

Hendrik Poinar: Riktheni mamuthin puplor!

Filmed:
1,086,263 views

Eshte endrra e femijeve neper bote te shohin bisha gjigande duke ecur neper Bote perseri. Mundet -- dhe duhet -- qe kjo enderr te realizohet? Hendrik Poinar na sjell nje fjalim informativ per dicka shume te madhe: Kerkimin per te projektuar nje krijese qe ngjason shume me mikun tone prej gezofi, mamuthin puplor. Hapi i pare, te perkasim gjenomin e puplorit eshte pothuajse i perfunduar. Eshte dicka e stermadhe (E regjistruar ne TEDxDeExtinction.)
- Evolutionary geneticist
Hendrik Poinar is a geneticist and biological anthropologist who focuses on extracting ancient DNA. He currently has his sights set on sequencing the genome of the woolly mammoth -- and cloning it. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:12
When I was a young boy,
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Kur isha nje djale i ri
00:14
I used to gaze through the microscope of my father
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Veshtroja ngultas ne mikroskopin e babait tim
00:17
at the insects in amber that he kept in the house.
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insektet ne qelibar qe ai mbante ne shtepi.
00:20
And they were remarkably well preserved,
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Ato ishin te mire ruajtura mrekullisht,
00:23
morphologically just phenomenal.
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morfologjikisht thjesht fenomenale.
00:25
And we used to imagine that someday,
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Dhe imagjinonim se nje dite,
00:27
they would actually come to life
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ato realisht do ktheheshin ne jete
00:29
and they would crawl out of the resin,
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dhe do zvariteshin jashte rreshires,
00:31
and, if they could, they would fly away.
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dhe, nese do mundeshin, do fluturonin.
00:33
If you had asked me 10 years ago whether or not
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Nese do me pyesnit 10 vjet me pare nese
00:36
we would ever be able to sequence the genome of extinct animals,
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do mund te ishim te afte te ndiqnim gjenomin e kafsheve te zhdukura
00:39
I would have told you, it's unlikely.
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do ju thoja eshte e pamundur.
00:42
If you had asked whether or not we would actually be able
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Nese do me pyesnit nese do ishim apo jo te afte
00:43
to revive an extinct species,
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te ringjallnim nje specie te zhdukur,
00:46
I would have said, pipe dream.
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do ju thoja, vazhdoni enderroni.
00:47
But I'm actually standing here today, amazingly,
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Por realisht ndodhem ketu sot, mrekullisht,
00:50
to tell you that not only is the sequencing
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per t'ju thene se jo vetem eshte ndjekja
00:52
of extinct genomes a possibility, actually a modern-day reality,
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e gjenomit te zhdukur nje mundesi, nje realitet i dites moderne,
00:56
but the revival of an extinct species is actually within reach,
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por ringjallja e specieve te zhdukura eshte aktualisht e prekshme,
01:00
maybe not from the insects in amber --
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mbase jo nga insektet ne qelibar --
01:02
in fact, this mosquito was actually used
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ne fakt, kjo mushkonje eshte perdorur
01:04
for the inspiration for "Jurassic Park" —
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per te frymezuar "Jurassic Park"--
01:06
but from woolly mammoths, the well preserved remains
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por nga mamuthet puplor, me te mirembajturit
01:09
of woolly mammoths in the permafrost.
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prej tyre jane ne parangrirje.
01:11
Woollies are a particularly interesting,
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Puploret jane vecanerisht interesant,
01:13
quintessential image of the Ice Age.
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persosmerisht imazhi i Epokes se Akullnajave.
01:16
They were large. They were hairy.
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Ata ishin te medhenj. Ata ishin leshtor.
01:18
They had large tusks, and we seem to have
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Kishin catall te medhenj, dhe me sa duket
01:20
a very deep connection with them, like we do with elephants.
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ne kishim nje lidhje shume te thelle me ta, ashtu sic e kemi me elefantet.
01:22
Maybe it's because elephants share
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Mbase sepse elefantet ndajne
01:25
many things in common with us.
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shume te perbashketa me ne.
01:27
They bury their dead. They educate the next of kin.
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Ata i groposin te vdekurit e tyre. Edukojne pasuesin e fisit.
01:30
They have social knits that are very close.
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Kane nderthurje sociale qe jane shume afer me tonat.
01:33
Or maybe it's actually because we're bound by deep time,
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Ose mbase ndodh sepse ne jemi te lidhur thelle me kohe,
01:35
because elephants, like us, share their origins in Africa
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sepse elefantet, si ne, e kane origjinen nga Afrika
01:39
some seven million years ago,
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rreth shtate milion vite me pare,
01:41
and as habitats changed and environments changed,
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dhe ndersa habitatet dhe mjedisi ndryshuan
01:44
we actually, like the elephants, migrated out
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ne faktikisht, si dhe elefantet, migruam
01:47
into Europe and Asia.
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per ne Europe dhe Azi.
01:50
So the first large mammoth that appears on the scene
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Pra mamuthi i pare i madh qe shfaqet ne skene
01:52
is meridionalis, which was standing four meters tall
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eshte meridionalis, i cili ishte kater metra i gjate
01:56
weighing about 10 tons, and was a woodland-adapted species
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me pesh rreth 10ton, dhe ishte nje specie e pershtatur ne pyll
01:59
and spread from Western Europe clear across Central Asia,
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dhe shtrihej qe nga Europa Perendimore deri ne Azine qendrore,
02:02
across the Bering land bridge
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permes ures tokesore Bering
02:05
and into parts of North America.
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dhe ne disa pjese te Amerikes Veriore.
02:07
And then, again, as climate changed as it always does,
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Dhe me pas, perseri, ndersa klima ndryshoi sikurse ndryshon gjithmone,
02:10
and new habitats opened up,
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dhe vendbanime te tjera u hapen,
02:11
we had the arrival of a steppe-adapted species
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kishim mberritjen e specieve pershtatur-stepesh
02:14
called trogontherii in Central Asia
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te quajtur trongotherii ne Azine Qendrore
02:16
pushing meridionalis out into Western Europe.
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duke i spostuar meridionalis ne Europen Perendimore.
02:19
And the open grassland savannas of North America
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Dhe tokat barore (savanat) e Amerikes Veriore
02:21
opened up, leading to the Columbian mammoth,
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u hapen, duke na sjell mamuthin Kolumbian,
02:23
a large, hairless species in North America.
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nje specie e madhe, leshtore ne Ameriken Veriore.
02:26
And it was really only about 500,000 years later
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Dhe ishte rreth 500.000 viteve me vone
02:29
that we had the arrival of the woolly,
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qe ne kishim mberritjen e puploreve,
02:31
the one that we all know and love so much,
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ai qe ne te gjithe njohim dhe e duam kaq shume,
02:33
spreading from an East Beringian point of origin
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duke u perhapur nga Beringiani Lindor
02:37
across Central Asia, again pushing the trogontherii
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deri ne Azin Qendore, serish duke e shtyre trogontheriin
02:40
out through Central Europe,
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jashte neper Europen Qendrore,
02:41
and over hundreds of thousands of years
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dhe per qindra mijera vite
02:43
migrating back and forth across the Bering land bridge
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duke migruar poshte e larte neper uren tokesore te Bering,
02:46
during times of glacial peaks
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gjate kohes se kulmit te akullt,
02:48
and coming into direct contact
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dhe duke ardhur ne kontakt te drejtperdrejte
02:50
with the Columbian relatives living in the south,
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me farefisin Kolumbian qe jetonte ne jug,
02:53
and there they survive over hundreds of thousands of years
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dhe aty ata mbijetuan per qindra mijera vite
02:56
during traumatic climatic shifts.
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gjate ndryshimeve traumatike te klimes.
02:58
So there's a highly plastic animal dealing with great transitions
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Pra ekziton nje kafshe shume plastike e cila ka kaluar tranzicione te medha
03:03
in temperature and environment, and doing very, very well.
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si ne temperatura ashtu dhe mjedis, dhe ja ka dal shume mire.
03:06
And there they survive on the mainland until about 10,000 years ago,
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Dhe ne ate kontinent ata mbijetojne deri para 10.000 viteve,
03:10
and actually, surprisingly, on the small islands off of Siberia
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dhe suprizisht, ne ishujt e vegjel ne dalje te Siberise
03:13
and Alaska until about 3,000 years ago.
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dhe Alaskes deri para 3.000 viteve.
03:15
So Egyptians are building pyramids
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Pra Egjiptianet po ndertojne piramidat
03:17
and woollies are still living on islands.
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dhe puploret jetojne akoma neper ishuj.
03:20
And then they disappear.
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Dhe me pas ata zhduken.
03:21
Like 99 percent of all the animals that have once lived,
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Si 99 perqind e te gjitha kafsheve qe kane jetuar ndonjehere here
03:23
they go extinct, likely due to a warming climate
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ata zhduken, me shume mundesi prej ngrohjes se klimes
03:27
and fast-encroaching dense forests
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dhe shpyllezimin e pyjeve te dendur
03:29
that are migrating north,
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qe po migrojne ne veri,
03:30
and also, as the late, great Paul Martin once put it,
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dhe gjithashtu, sikurse ka thene nje here madhi Paul Martin,
03:33
probably Pleistocene overkill,
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me shume gjasa, vrasja ne mase e Pleistocene
03:35
so the large game hunters that took them down.
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kane qene gjahtaret e kafsheve te medha qe i kane eleminuar.
03:38
Fortunately, we find millions of their remains
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Fatmiresisht, ne gjetem miliona mbetje te tyre
03:40
strewn across the permafrost buried deep
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te shperndara neper ngrirje te thelle-groposura
03:43
in Siberia and Alaska, and we can actually go up there
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ne Siberi dhe Alaske, dhe mund te shkojme atje
03:46
and actually take them out.
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dhe realisht ti marrim.
03:48
And the preservation is, again,
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Dhe ruajtja eshte, perseri,
03:49
like those insects in [amber], phenomenal.
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si ato insektet ne (qelibar), fenomenale.
03:52
So you have teeth, bones with blood
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Pra kemi dhembe, kocka me gjak
03:55
which look like blood, you have hair,
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i cili ngjasonte me gjak, kemi flok,
03:57
and you have intact carcasses or heads
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kemi kufoma te paprekura ose koke
03:59
which still have brains in them.
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te cilat kane akoma tru brenda tyre.
04:02
So the preservation and the survival of DNA
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Pra ruajtja dhe mbijetesa e ADN-se
04:04
depends on many factors, and I have to admit,
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varet nga shume faktor, dhe me duhet ta pranoj,
04:06
most of which we still don't quite understand,
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shumicen e tyre ne nuk i kuptojme akoma,
04:08
but depending upon when an organism dies
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por ne varesi te momentit kur nje organizem shuhet
04:11
and how quickly he's buried, the depth of that burial,
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dhe sa shpejt ai varroset, thellesia e asaj groposje,
04:15
the constancy of the temperature of that burial environment,
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qendrueshmeria ne temperaturen e atij mjedisi groposjeje
04:18
will ultimately dictate how long DNA will survive
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do diktoje perfundimisht se sa gjate do mbijetoje ADN-ja
04:21
over geologically meaningful time frames.
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mbi kornizat gjeologjikisht kuptimplota te kohes.
04:24
And it's probably surprising to many of you
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Dhe me shume gjasa eshte suprize per shume nga ju
04:25
sitting in this room that it's not the time that matters,
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qe qendroni sot ne kete salle, qe nuk eshte koha ajo qe ka rendesi,
04:29
it's not the length of preservation,
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nuk eshte kohezgjatia e ruajtjes,
04:30
it's the consistency of the temperature of that preservation that matters most.
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eshte qendrueshmeria e temperatures se asaj ruajtje qe ka me shume rendesi.
04:34
So if we were to go deep now within the bones
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Pra nese do shkonim thelle brenda kockave
04:37
and the teeth that actually survived the fossilization process,
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dhe dhembeve qe realisht i mbijetuan procesit te fosilizimit,
04:40
the DNA which was once intact, tightly wrapped
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ADN-ja qe njehere ishte e paprekur, e mbeshtjellur fort
04:43
around histone proteins, is now under attack
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perreth proteinave te kromatines, eshte tashme ne sulme
04:46
by the bacteria that lived symbiotically with the mammoth
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nga bakterjet qe bashkejetonin me mamuthin
04:49
for years during its lifetime.
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per vite gjate jeteses se tij.
04:50
So those bacteria, along with the environmental bacteria,
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Pra ato baktere, sebashku me bakteret e mjedisit,
04:54
free water and oxygen, actually break apart the DNA
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pa uje dhe oksigjen, ne te vertete e ndajne ADN-ne
04:57
into smaller and smaller and smaller DNA fragments,
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ne fragmente ADN-je shume te vogla
05:00
until all you have are fragments that range
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deri sa te kesh fragmente qe shtrihen,
05:02
from 10 base pairs to, in the best case scenarios,
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ne cifte 10-she, ne rastine me te mire,
05:05
a few hundred base pairs in length.
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ne pak qindra cifte baze ne gjatesi.
05:07
So most fossils out there in the fossil record
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Pra shumica e fosileve ne regjistrin e fosileve
05:10
are actually completely devoid of all organic signatures.
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jane ne te vertete totalisht te lira nga te gjitha shenjat organike.
05:12
But a few of them actually have DNA fragments
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Por shume pak nga ato kane fragmente te ADN-se
05:15
that survive for thousands,
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qe mbijetojne per mijera,
05:17
even a few millions of years in time.
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madje pak milion vite ne kohe.
05:20
And using state-of-the-art clean room technology,
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Dhe duke perdorur teknologjine me te fundit te zvhillimit,
05:23
we've devised ways that we can actually pull these DNAs
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kemi shpikur menyra qe mund te ndajme ne te vertete keto ADN
05:25
away from all the rest of the gunk in there,
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larg nga pjesa tjeter e ngatarruar aty brenda,
05:28
and it's not surprising to any of you sitting in the room
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dhe nuk eshte aspak suprize per ju qe ndodheni ne kete salle
05:30
that if I take a mammoth bone or a tooth
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qe nese marr nje kocke ose dhembe mamuthi
05:32
and I extract its DNA that I'll get mammoth DNA,
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dhe i shkepus ADN-ne atehere do marr jo vetem ADN-ne e mamuthit,
05:35
but I'll also get all the bacteria that once lived with the mammoth,
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por gjithashtu edhe te gjitha bakteret qe kane jetuar dikur me mamuthin,
05:39
and, more complicated, I'll get all the DNA
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edhe me e komplikuar, do marr te gjithe ADN-ne
05:41
that survived in that environment with it,
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qe mbijetoi ne ate mjedis me ate,
05:43
so the bacteria, the fungi, and so on and so forth.
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bakteret, qelizat dhe te tjera.
05:46
Not surprising then again that a mammoth
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Aspak suprizuese atehere qe nje mamuth
05:49
preserved in the permafrost will have something
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i ruajtur ne parangrirje do kete dicka
05:51
on the order of 50 percent of its DNA being mammoth,
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ne rangun 50 per qind te ADN-se se qenies se mamuthit,
05:53
whereas something like the Columbian mammoth,
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ndersa dicka si mamuthi Kolumbian,
05:55
living in a temperature and buried in a temperate environment
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qe jeton ne temperatura dhe ne nje mjedis te permbajtur
05:58
over its laying-in will only have 3 to 10 percent endogenous.
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mbi shtresen e tij, do kete vetem 3 deri ne 10 perqind endogjen.
06:02
But we've come up with very clever ways
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Por kemi zbuluar disa ide shume te zgjuara
06:04
that we can actually discriminate, capture and discriminate,
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qe realisht ne mundemi te kapim dhe nxjerrim
06:07
the mammoth from the non-mammoth DNA,
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mamuthin nga nje ADN-ne jo e mamuthit,
06:09
and with the advances in high-throughput sequencing,
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dhe me avantazhin e sekuencave te analizes se larte,
06:12
we can actually pull out and bioinformatically
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mund te nxjerrim dhe ne menyre bioinfomatikuese
06:15
re-jig all these small mammoth fragments
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te riprodhojme fragmentet e vogla te mamuthit
06:18
and place them onto a backbone
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dhe ti vendosim ne nje kocke shpine
06:20
of an Asian or African elephant chromosome.
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ne kromozonin e nje elefanti Aziatik ose Afrikan.
06:23
And so by doing that, we can actually get all the little points
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Dhe duke bere kete, realisht mund te marim pikat e vogla
06:25
that discriminate between a mammoth and an Asian elephant,
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qe dallojne ndermjet nje mamuthi dhe nje elefanti Aziatik,
06:28
and what do we know, then, about a mammoth?
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atehere, cfare dime ne per nje mamuth?
06:31
Well, the mammoth genome is almost at full completion,
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Gjenomi i mamuthit eshte pothuajse ne permbushje,
06:34
and we know that it's actually really big. It's mammoth.
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dhe realisht e dime qe eshte shume a madhe. Eshte mamuth.
06:38
So a hominid genome is about three billion base pairs,
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Pra gjenomi njerezor eshte rreth tre miliarde cifte baze,
06:41
but an elephant and mammoth genome
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por gjenomi i nje elefanti dhe i mamuthit
06:42
is about two billion base pairs larger, and most of that
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eshte rreth dy miliarde cifte baze me i madh, dhe me e rendesishmja
06:45
is composed of small, repetitive DNAs
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eshte e perbere nga ADN me te vogla te perseritura
06:48
that make it very difficult to actually re-jig the entire structure of the genome.
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e cila e ben shume te veshtire rigjenerimin e struktures totale te gjenomit.
06:52
So having this information allows us to answer
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Pra, duke pasur kete informacion na lejon ti pergjigjemi
06:55
one of the interesting relationship questions
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nje prej pyetjeve interesante mbi lidhjen
06:57
between mammoths and their living relatives,
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ndermjet mamuthit dhe fisit te tij ekzistues,
06:59
the African and the Asian elephant,
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elefantin Afrikan dhe Aziatik,
07:01
all of which shared an ancestor seven million years ago,
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te cilet ndanin te njejtin stergjysh shtate milion vite me pare,
07:04
but the genome of the mammoth shows it to share
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por gjenomi i mamuthit tregon ndarjen
07:06
a most recent common ancestor with Asian elephants
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e nje stergjyshi me te vonshem te berbashket me elefantet Aziatik
07:09
about six million years ago,
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rreth gjashte milion vite me pare,
07:11
so slightly closer to the Asian elephant.
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shume i afert me elefenatin Aziatik.
07:13
With advances in ancient DNA technology,
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Me perparimet ne teknologjine e ADN-se
07:16
we can actually now start to begin to sequence
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aktualisht mund te fillojme te rendisim
07:18
the genomes of those other extinct mammoth forms that I mentioned,
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gjenomet e atyre mamutheve qe une permenda,
07:21
and I just wanted to talk about two of them,
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dhe ne fakt une doja te flija per dy nga ato,
07:23
the woolly and the Columbian mammoth,
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puplorin dhe mamuthin Kolumbian,
07:25
both of which were living very close to each other
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te cilet qe te dy jetonin shume afer njeri tjetrit
07:27
during glacial peaks,
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gjate kulmit te akullnajave,
07:30
so when the glaciers were massive in North America,
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dhe kur akullnajat ishin masive ne Ameriken Veriore,
07:32
the woollies were pushed into these subglacial ecotones,
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puploret u shtyne ne nje rajon tranzicioni nenakujsh,
07:35
and came into contact with the relatives living to the south,
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dhe erdhen ne kontakt me fisin e tyre i cili jetonte ne jug,
07:38
and there they shared refugia,
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aty ndane strehat,
07:40
and a little bit more than the refugia, it turns out.
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dhe sic rezulton dicka me shume se vetem strehat.
07:42
It looks like they were interbreeding.
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Me sa duket ata u shumuan mes tyre.
07:45
And that this is not an uncommon feature
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Dhe kjo nuk ishte nje vecori e rralle
07:47
in Proboscideans, because it turns out
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ne Proboscideans, sepse rezulton
07:48
that large savanna male elephants will outcompete
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se meshkujt elefant te savanave do jene me te afte
07:51
the smaller forest elephants for their females.
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me femrat se sa elefantet e vegjel pyjor.
07:54
So large, hairless Columbians
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Pra, Kolumbianet e medhenj pa push
07:57
outcompeting the smaller male woollies.
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tejkaluan meshkujt puploret te vegjel.
07:59
It reminds me a bit of high school, unfortunately.
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Me kujton pak gjimnazin, fatkeqesisht.
08:01
(Laughter)
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(Te qeshura)
08:04
So this is not trivial, given the idea that we want
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Kjo nuk eshte e parendesishme, me iden qe duam
08:06
to revive extinct species, because it turns out
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te ringjallim speciet e zhdukura, se rezulton
08:08
that an African and an Asian elephant
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qe nje elefant Afrikan dhe Aziatik
08:10
can actually interbreed and have live young,
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mund te shumohen dhe te sjellin ne jete te rinj,
08:12
and this has actually occurred by accident in a zoo
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dhe kjo ka ndodhur aksidentalisht ne nje kopsht zoologjik
08:14
in Chester, U.K., in 1978.
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ne Chester, U.K., ne 1978.
08:18
So that means that we can actually take Asian elephant chromosomes,
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Kjo do te thote se ne realisht mund te marim kromozonin e nje elefanti Aziatik
08:21
modify them into all those positions we've actually now
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ta modifikojme ne keto menyra sic e kemi bere aktualisht
08:23
been able to discriminate with the mammoth genome,
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te mundemi ta ndajme me gjenomin e mamuthit,
08:25
we can put that into an enucleated cell,
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ta vendosim ne nje qelize te cberthamuar,
08:28
differentiate that into a stem cell,
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ta modifikojme ne nje qelize burimi,
08:30
subsequently differentiate that maybe into a sperm,
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me pas ta modifikojme mbase ne nje sperm,
08:33
artificially inseminate an Asian elephant egg,
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artificalisht te plenojme nje veze elefanti Aziatik,
08:35
and over a long and arduous procedure,
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dhe pas nje procedure te gjate dhe te lodhshme,
08:38
actually bring back something that looks like this.
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mund te sjellim dicka qe ngjan si kjo.
08:42
Now, this wouldn't be an exact replica,
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Ne rregull, kjo mbase nuk mund te jete kopja ekzakte
08:43
because the short DNA fragments that I told you about
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sepse ato fragmentet e shkurta te ADN-se qe ju permenda
08:46
will prevent us from building the exact structure,
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do na pengojne te ndertojme strukturen ekzakte,
08:48
but it would make something that looked and felt
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por do bente dicka qe do ngjasonte
08:50
very much like a woolly mammoth did.
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shume me nje mamuth puplor.
08:53
Now, when I bring up this with my friends,
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Kur e permend kete me miqte e mi,
08:56
we often talk about, well, where would you put it?
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ne shpesh diskutojme, ne rregull, por ku do e vendosesh?
08:58
Where are you going to house a mammoth?
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Ku do te strehosh nje mamuth?
09:00
There's no climates or habitats suitable.
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Nuk ka klime dhe vendbanim te pershtatshme.
09:02
Well, that's not actually the case.
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Faktikisht, nuk eshte kjo ceshtja.
09:04
It turns out that there are swaths of habitat
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Rezulton se ka disa vende te kopsitura vendbanimi
09:06
in the north of Siberia and Yukon
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ne veri te Siberise dhe Yukon
09:09
that actually could house a mammoth.
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qe realisht mund te strehojne nje mamuth.
09:10
Remember, this was a highly plastic animal
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Kujtoni, kjo ishte nje kafshe shume elastike
09:12
that lived over tremendous climate variation.
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qe ka jetuar neper ndryshime te tmerrshme klime.
09:15
So this landscape would be easily able to house it,
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Pra kjo toke mund te strehoje shume lehte ate,
09:18
and I have to admit that there [is] a part of the child in me,
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dhe me duhet te pranoj se nuk eshte pjesa e femijes brenda meje,
09:21
the boy in me, that would love to see
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djali brenda meje, qe do deshironte te shikonte
09:23
these majestic creatures walk across the permafrost
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keto krijesa madheshtore duke ecur pertej
09:26
of the north once again, but I do have to admit
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veriut edhe nje here, por me duhet te pranoj
09:28
that part of the adult in me sometimes wonders
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se pjesa e te rriturit brenda meje disa here pyet veten
09:30
whether or not we should.
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nese duhet apo jo.
09:33
Thank you very much.
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Ju faleminderit shume.
09:34
(Applause)
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(Duartrokitje)
09:39
Ryan Phelan: Don't go away.
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Ryan Phelan: Mos u largo.
09:41
You've left us with a question.
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Na le me nje pyetje.
09:43
I'm sure everyone is asking this. When you say, "Should we?"
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Jam i sigurte qe te gjithe jane duke pyetur. Kur thua "Duhet?"
09:46
it feels like you're reticent there,
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Duket sikur je i permbajtur aty,
09:49
and yet you've given us a vision of it being so possible.
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por nderkohe na dhe vizionin qe kjo mund te jete e mundur.
09:52
What's your reticence?
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Ku qendron heshtja jote?
09:53
Hendrik Poinar: I don't think it's reticence.
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Hendrik Poinar: Nuk mendoj se eshte heshtje.
Une thjesht mendoj se duhet te mendojme thelle
09:54
I think it's just that we have to think very deeply
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09:58
about the implications, ramifications of our actions,
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implikimet, degezimet e veprave tona,
10:01
and so as long as we have good, deep discussion
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dhe per sa kohe kemi nje diskutim te mirefillte
10:03
like we're having now, I think
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si ky i tanishmi, une mendoj
10:05
we can come to a very good solution as to why to do it.
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se ne mund te gjejme nje zgjidhje shume te mire se pse duhet ta bejme.
10:08
But I just want to make sure that we spend time
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Por une dua te sigurohem qe ne te kalojme kohe
10:09
thinking about why we're doing it first.
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duke menduar se pse po e bejme fillimisht.
10:11
RP: Perfect. Perfect answer. Thank you very much, Hendrik.
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RP: Perfekte. Pergjigje perfekte. Te falenderoj Hendrik.
10:14
HP: Thank you. (Applause)
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HP. Faleminderit. (Duartrokitje)
Translated by Alisa Xholi
Reviewed by Iris Xholi

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Hendrik Poinar - Evolutionary geneticist
Hendrik Poinar is a geneticist and biological anthropologist who focuses on extracting ancient DNA. He currently has his sights set on sequencing the genome of the woolly mammoth -- and cloning it.

Why you should listen

As a child Hendrik Poinar never imagined that the insects his father kept around the house, extinct and preserved in amber, could someday be brought to life. Well that's exactly what Poinar has devoted his career to doing. Today he is a molecular evolutionary geneticist and biological anthropologist at McMaster University in Ontario, where he is the principal investigator at the Ancient DNA Centre. Poinar's focus is on extracting and preserving DNA from paleontological remains -- precisely what he thought impossible as a kid.

And Poinar's newest project is much, much bigger than those insects from his childhood: He wants to bring back the woolly mammoth. In 2006 he and his team started working on sequencing the mammoth genome, based on DNA extracted from well-preserved remains found in Yukon and Siberia. With the mapping nearly complete, Poinar will next turn to engineering an animal very closely resembling the woolly mammoth.

More profile about the speaker
Hendrik Poinar | Speaker | TED.com