Instead of Jurassic Park, try Pleistocene Park.
A team of scientists from Japan, Russia and the United States hopes to clone a mammoth, a symbol of Earth’s ice age that ended 12,000 years ago, according to a report in Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun. The researchers say they hope to produce a baby mammoth within six years.
The scientists say they will extract DNA from a mammoth carcass that has been preserved in a Russian laboratory and insert it into the egg cells of an African elephant in hopes of producing a mammoth embryo.
The team is being led by Akira Iritani, a professor emeritus at Kyoto University in Japan. He has built upon research from Teruhiko Wakayama of Kobe's Riken Center for Developmental Biology, who successfully cloned a mouse from cells that had been frozen for 16 years, to devise a technique to extract egg nuclei without damaging them, according to the Yomiuri report.
The U.S. researchers are in vitro fertilization experts. They, along with Kinki University professor Minoru Miyashita, will be responsible for implanting the mammoth embryo into an African elephant, the report 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," Iritani told Yomiuri. "After the mammoth is born, we'll examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors."
© 2011 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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I'm real sure that if these scientist have the ability to re-create the dead they should have the cure for cancer. Oh but wait I believe they do, they are just keeping it an underground secret because there would be a great employment loss along with the amount of money there receive for cancer research. Keep the prehistoric where it belongs and help cure those who fight for their lives every day!!!
Worst idea ever because it will die of loneliness being the only of its kind. This is exactly what happened to an elephant that was brought to St. Lucia.
As long as they don't clone my eighth grade music teacher. God, she was awful !
Good, I hope they clone it, breed it, and reintroduce it to the wild. Humans were probably the major factor in why it went extinct, so it would be appropriate if we helped to bring it back.
stop spamming