Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2020 January 12

= January 12 =

Other animals with Sexual Maturity after age 10.
What animal species other than humans reach Sexual Maturity on average after age 10. I'm particularly looking for Mammals.Naraht (talk) 13:19, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Haven't found an answer yet, but you may be interested in Lifespan and sexual maturity depends on your brain more than your body which says: "New Vanderbilt research finds how long humans and other warm-blooded animals live--and when they reach sexual maturity-- may have more to do with their brain than their body. More specifically, it is not animals with larger bodies or slower metabolic rates that live longer; it is animals with more neurons in the cerebral cortex, whatever the size of the body". So we're looking for an animal with more brain cells than us. Alansplodge (talk) 18:58, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Elephants, probably all 3 extant species see Asian_elephant, African forest elephant, and African bush elephant. Bowhead_whale. Maybe Blue whale. Nil Einne (talk) 19:16, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Baboons can take 8 years; that's pretty high. Temerarius (talk) 23:43, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Killer whales mature at 10 for females, and 15 for males. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:00, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * While not a mammal, few animals should beat Greenland shark's figure of 150 years. 95.168.104.175 (talk) 17:02, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Cloning Elon Musk
Could Elon Musk be cloned to help solve more complex problems in the future? 113.23.4.235 (talk) 14:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * They cloned a sheep so they can clone Musk, I suppose, but why? Did Elon Musk help solve problems of any complexity in the past? 2003:F5:6F05:EC00:D8E2:2B19:6E6D:B96 (talk) 15:37, 12 January 2020 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin


 * There's no assurance that cloning someone will produce the same person again. Consider the Canseco twin brothers, Jose and Ozzie. Jose had an impact on baseball, while Ozzie did not. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:10, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Elon Musk, just in case you we're wondering. Our human cloning article says that cloning is illegal in most civilised countries, but China seems to have fewer scruples; see Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua who are cloned monkeys. Alansplodge (talk) 19:03, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I will assume good faith in the questioner, but I will also point out that there have been other (to put it politely) banana-balls crazy questions about the public figure in question from unregistered users recently. Temerarius (talk) 23:57, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Hey, banana balls are tasty! (Hmm, should banana ball be turned blue?) Anyway, cloning humans is likely feasible in the medium-term future, though I will note the Ref Desk is not for predictions. Human clones already exist and have existed for as long as humans have. We call them identical twins. The act of human cloning would simply entail producing an identical twin intentionally, and probably from a person's existing somatic cells, as opposed to "natural" clones, which result when a human zygote spontaneously splits and develops into two fetuses. Cloning of human organs (as opposed to complete humans) is seeing a lot of serious research, as this would allow an organ "self-transplant", which would solve the problems of organ rejection and limited supply of transplant organs. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 05:22, 13 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Even when it is possible to clone somebody precisely, with no genetic problems introduced, there's still the issue of reproducing the exact environment that produced the original. There may be something equivalent to the butterfly effect, where a seemingly trivial event early in life sets the course for that person's entire life. NonmalignedNations (talk) 08:31, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * See Nature versus nurture and also The Boys from Brazil (novel). Even if the exact upbringing is applied, (impossible) it is not guaranteed that the same person would emerge.  Thanks.  Anton.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.40.58 (talk) 10:19, 13 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I've read at least two stories about attempts to recreate a legendary hero by recreating his formative childhood experiences: "The Blabber" by Vernor Vinge, and another whose title and author I cannot recall; I wanted to say "The Conqueror" by Cyril Kornbluth, but it seems Kornbluth never wrote a story by that title, though at least ten others did. —Tamfang (talk) 06:22, 14 January 2020 (UTC)