Baby Mammoth Found

Researchers have discovered a baby mammoth in the permafrost of northern Siberia. The body remains almost completely intact, with even its eyes and some hair preserved. With such a complete specimen, some scientists are going to attempt to extract DNA. The ultimate goal is to create new mammoths or mammoth-elephant hybrids through cross-fertilization and nuclear cloning techniques.

Of course, impeding this process is the black-market selling of mammoth remains. Local people have horded scientifically-viable mammoth remains for the past few decades, and the Russions government has done little to stop them. Mammoth hair, for example, can go for as much as $50 an inch.

That said, I think it is likely that we will be cloning a mammoth pretty soon. Northern Russia is ripe with remains, mostly because a population of mammoths lived there until only 5,000 years ago. If scientists succeed, then they can overcome the negative effects of hunting and climate change that originally pushed the animals to extinction.