Japanese, Russian scientists see high chance of cloning mammoth within 5 years

Scientists believe it may be possible to clone a woolly mammoth within five years after finding well-preserved bone marrow in a thigh bone recovered from permafrost soil in Siberia.

Teams from Russia’s Sakha Republic’s mammoth museum and Japan’s Kinki University will launch fully-fledged joint research next year aiming to recreate the giant mammal, Japan’s Kyodo News reported from Yakutsk, Russia.

By replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken from the mammoth’s marrow cells, embryos with mammoth DNA can be produced, Kyodo said, citing the researchers.

The scientists will then plant the embryos into elephant wombs for delivery as the two species are close relative

As noted in 2009 on this site, bringing back the Woolly Mammoth, Saber-Tooth Tigers and Neanderthal from the Pleistocene epoch seems possible. The Pleistocene is the epoch from 1.8 million to 10,000 years BP covering the world’s recent period of repeated glaciations.

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