Cells from a woolly mammoth that died around 28,000 years ago have begun showing “signs of life” during a groundbreaking scientific experiment.
Cells from a woolly mammoth that died around 28,000 years ago have begun showing “signs of life” during a groundbreaking scientific experiment.
The young woolly mammoth was dug out of Siberian permafrost in 2011. With the species being extinct for about 4,000 years, finding such a relatively intact specimen was big news – particularly since this one was 28,000 years old.
Scientists have since been eager to find out how viable the biological materials of the uncovered mammoth still are, all those millennia later. Now researchers at Kindai University in Japan have found that its DNA is partially intact – and apparently they are well in the game to restore this huge prehistoric mammal back among the living.
If they succeed, it could look something like this (at first).
The young woolly mammoth was dug out of Siberian permafrost in 2011. With the species being extinct for about 4,000 years, finding such a relatively intact specimen was big news – particularly since this one was 28,000 years old.
Scientists have since been eager to find out how viable the biological materials of the uncovered mammoth still are, all those millennia later. Now researchers at Kindai University in Japan have found that its DNA is partially intact – and apparently they are well in the game to restore this huge prehistoric mammal back among the living.
If they succeed, it could look something like this (at first).
