According to scientists, mammoths lived about 350,000 years ago. The glacial period has become fatal for them. However, a timid hope appeared that extinct mammoths would be able to resurrect with the help of cloning.
A unique laboratory has opened in Yakutsk, where the remains of extinct animals found in permafrost are studied. The capital of Yakutia is rightfully considered one of the coldest cities in the world, and the Republic of Yakutia (Sakha) itself is a place where in recent years scientists regularly find freezing carcasses of ancient animals.
One of the priority international programs of the local North-Eastern Federal University is devoted to the revival of mammoths and other fossil animals by cloning. The program was headed by the head of the mammoth museum Semen Grigoryev. Together with Russian scientists, their colleagues from China and South Korea (Institute of Genomics, Beijing and Research Organization of SOM Biotech, Seoul) participate in the project.
Cloning will require well -preserved carcasses of mammoths, which at one time ended up in the thawed eternal permafrost as a young female nicknamed Yuka. According to scientists, she died about 39,000 years ago as a result of an attack by a predator.
In the event that scientists still manage to get “live” genetic material, then it will be transplanted into the egg of the Asian elephant, the closest living descendant of mammoths.
