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17th Feb 2017

The plot to Jurassic Park is coming true as scientists are THIS CLOSE to bringing back Woolly Mammoths

Rory Cashin

The old idiom “As dead as a dodo” is about to become as extinct as, well, the dodo.

Its been over 4,000 years since the last woolly mammoth roamed the Earth, when a combination of climate change and over-hunting drove them into extinction.

However, the leader of a  group of Harvard scientists spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston earlier this week, and announced they were just two years away from reintroducing a variation of the creature back into the world.

By splicing woolly mammoth DNA with that of it’s closest living relative, the Asian elephant, the hybrid embryo would be the first step in the “de-extinction” of the animal, with scientists hoping it will provide a healthy new future for the endangered Asian elephant, as well as fighting global warming, as the Mammoths would keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in.

Speaking to The Guardian, Matthew Cobb, professor of zoology at the University of Manchester, raised a few concerns about the project: “The proposed ‘de-extinction’ of mammoths raises a massive ethical issue – the mammoth was not simply a set of genes, it was a social animal, as is the modern Asian elephant. What will happen when the elephant-mammoth hybrid is born? How will it be greeted by elephants?”

All of this is well and good, but how long before they properly re-introduce dinosaurs? Maybe in some kind of theme park? What could possibly go wrong?

Clip via Movies2You

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