What previously could only be imagined in Hollywood films like Jurassic Park has become a very realistic scenario for scientists, according to the German newspaper Die Welt. Already, genetic scientists from all over the world are working on cloning animals that died out tens of thousands of years ago.
So, more recently - at the end of March this year - researchers from the Australian University of New South Wales managed to reproduce the genome of a rare species of frogs that completely disappeared from the continent in the early 80s of the last century.
True, the newspaper notes, the resulting embryos turned out to be unviable - just like it happened with the Pyrenean mountain goat cloned in 2009, which died just a few minutes after birth. However, scientists are not upset and hope for a quick breakthrough in the cloning of extinct species.
“With frogs, this could have been achieved in 2-3 years of work,” says Hendrik Poinar, a geneticist at McMaster University in Canada. “But the world could see cloned mammoths only in 20-30 years.” Although, the scientist notes, the possibility that this may happen earlier cannot be ruled out.
Also in the plans of the researchers is the "resurrection" of the Tasmanian tiger, which disappeared in the 30s of the XX century, and the dodo bird that became extinct in the 17th century, unable to fly. The Japanese scientists, notes Die Welt, are generally going to recreate the mammoth before 2017. Their South Korean colleagues have similar plans.
The only thing that scientists need for this is a piece of tissue of an extinct species with well-preserved DNA. "DNA is quite suitable for cloning, even with an age of 200 thousand years," - explains the publication.
According to Moritz Gatman in the article "The Curse of the Mammoth", published in the German magazine Focus, in Yakutia - an area of permafrost, a large "refrigerator" hiding a huge number of forgotten life forms, a real hunt for the fossil remains of disappeared animals unfolded.
Sometimes human blood is shed in it. Indeed, in addition to state search parties engaged in search for scientific purposes and confiscating everything without looking back and any compensation, a large number of "mammoth hunters" are competing with each other, the journalist explains.
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“Just one well-preserved mammoth tusk can bring the lucky one who finds it a living in a few years,” Gatman continues. "The price of a pair (tusks) in excellent condition can generally be about 75 thousand euros."
In addition, after the trade in elephant tusks was banned in 1990, mammoth tusks, from which a wide variety of things are cut, from chess to jewelry, only added to their value. As you know, even US First Lady Michelle Obama has a necklace made of this "ethical" material.
