Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Japanese to revive mammoths?

mammothJapanese scientists said on Tuesday they had created a mouse from a dead cell frozen for 16 years, taking a step in the long impossible dream of bringing back extinct animals such as mammoths. Scientists at the government-backed research institute Riken used the dead cell of a mouse that had been preserved at minus 20 degrees Celsius - a temperature similar to frozen ground.

The scientists hope that the first-of-a-kind research will pave the way to restore extinct animals such as the mammoth... But the researchers said tough challenges remain ahead on how to restore extinct animals, which would require breeding with animals that are still alive.

To revive a mammoth, researchers would need to find a way to implant a cell nucleus of a mammoth into the egg of an elephant and then implant the embryo into an elephant's uterus, it said. ... - news24

I'd like to see a mammoth. They should bring back some of our human ancestors too, like Cro-magnon man.  Cro-magnon had larger brains than us.

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