Return of woolly mammoth?
Times Staff and Wire Reports
The woolly mammoth, extinct for thousands of years, may be closer to a comeback.
A technique that has been used to clone mice and other animals could enable scientists to resurrect long-gone species such as woolly mammoths, according to a study published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Japanese researchers led by Sayaka Wakayama of the Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe cloned mice using the nuclei of mouse brain cells that had been frozen at minus 4 degrees for as many as 16 years.
Critics, however, say that frozen DNA from the mammoths may be too degraded to regenerate the animals.
