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."
It was very cold when they were alive originally. If they manage to clone the animal, will it be able to survive in today's climate?
Interesting. maybe it will have intelligence and learn to speck.LOL
Interesting. maybe it will have intelligence and learn to speak.LOL
Also, why bring back extent animals. It would be better to focus how the keep current animals from dying off.
They aren't going to be able to study the mammoth's ecology unless they build a time machine.
YEAAAHHH I saw the flaw in that logic, too. "Ecology? But...."
Maybe it's a mistranslation.
I thought this article was going to be about Oprah.
This is incredible. . .let's see what would be the outcome. . .haha
I hope they take in to consideration size proportion. The poor momma of this creation will probably have to be put down to give birth.
This is a really bad idea! The scary thing is that this could be accomplished. :-/
You guys are a crack up. 🙂
God help us! When man starts to play "god." I can not help but wonder if the end is nigh. What is to be accomplished by bringing back these extinct creatures?
I hope they bring back Neanderthals so Bush can have another drinking buddy. They will be hunters like Sarah Palin and D!ck Cheney except they wont be able to use guns.
This is awesome!!!
Clone one to see why the species went extinct? It went extinct because the last one died. Nothing from a clone born today from a different species will shead any light on why the last mammouth one died. Overhunting, too warm? disease? Predators? Sounds like scientists with funding problems to me....
Why not clone a T-REX???? I am sure they can find some DNA for that somewhere.. Here we come JARASSIC PARK!!!!!!!
Nahh, oddly enough my husband and I were talking about impact of a dinosaur suddenly appearing in our world just yesterday.
We figure 15 minutes before it suffocated to death.