Scientists from Japan, Russia and the US have teamed up at Japan’s Kyoto University to try something of literally epic proportions: they want to clone a preserved mammoth from the last Ice Age about 20,000 years ago.
They will do this by extracting DNA from the mammoth carcass and injecting it into the womb of an African elephant. It’s expected that the process will produce a baby mammoth in the next several years.
The head of the team, Akira Iritani, said, “If a cloned embryo can be created, we need to discuss, before transplanting it into the womb, how to breed [the mammoth] and whether to display it to the public. After the mammoth is born, we’ll examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors.”
Hopefully any new mammoths will be as friendly as this one.
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Photo by rpongsaj via Flickr.