Stem cell technology may one day bring mammoths back
an Wilmut professor at the University of Edinburgh - best known for being the leader of the research group that cloned Dolly - wrote an article today on The Conversation on how stem cell technology has the potential to bring mammoths back from the dead.
Wilmut says that the astonishingly well-preserved blood from a 10,000-year-old frozen mammoth could lead to mammoth stem cell which in turn could lead a cloned mammoth
Woolly mammoths roamed the Earth tens of thousands of years ago in a period called the late Pleistocene.
Their numbers began to fall in North America and on mainland Eurasia about 10,000 years ago. Some lived on for a further 6,000 years.
The prospect of raising woolly mammoths from the dead has gathered pace in recent years as the number of frozen bodies recovered from the Siberian permafrost has soared.
If good-quality cells can be extracted from mammoth remains, they could be reprogrammed into stem cells using modern procedures. These could then be turned into other kinds of cell, including sperm and eggs.
an Wilmut professor at the University of Edinburgh - best known for being the leader of the research group that cloned Dolly - wrote an article today on The Conversation on how stem cell technology has the potential to bring mammoths back from the dead.
Wilmut says that the astonishingly well-preserved blood from a 10,000-year-old frozen mammoth could lead to mammoth stem cell which in turn could lead a cloned mammoth
Woolly mammoths roamed the Earth tens of thousands of years ago in a period called the late Pleistocene.
Their numbers began to fall in North America and on mainland Eurasia about 10,000 years ago. Some lived on for a further 6,000 years.
The prospect of raising woolly mammoths from the dead has gathered pace in recent years as the number of frozen bodies recovered from the Siberian permafrost has soared.
If good-quality cells can be extracted from mammoth remains, they could be reprogrammed into stem cells using modern procedures. These could then be turned into other kinds of cell, including sperm and eggs.
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