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MAMMOTHS WERE KEY. "When the ... megaherbivores were killed off by humans ten millennia ago ... the largest biome on earth, called the "mammoth steppe," converted from grassland to boreal forest and tundra ... thawing tundra is releasing greenhouse gases, whereas grassland fixes carbon." http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_case_for_de-extinction_why_we_should_bring_back_the_woolly_mammoth/2721/ View in LinkedIn

SECOND DE-EXTINCTION METHOD "is by pure cloning: emptying the surrogate egg of its own DNA, and injecting it with a copy of the target species’ genome. There are two potential sources of such a genome: researchers can use well preserved ... somatic cells ... or they can build the genome ... No species has yet been cloned with reconstructed DNA, but for long-gone species it might be our best shot." http://lnkd.in/dMx5dtr View in LinkedIn

ELEPHANT GENOME PROJECT, "once the MIT/Harvard Broad Institute’s Elephant Genome Project is completed, cross-comparison will allow PSU to close in on that final 15%" of the wooly mammoth's DNA (from Penn State). http://lnkd.in/dMx5dtr View in LinkedIn

FIRST DE-EXTINCTION METHOD, "both involve injecting a surrogate egg with the target species’ DNA. The first method is in vitro fertilization of the egg using frozen sperm ... produces a hybrid between two species ... only a viable option if the target species’ and the egg donor species’ DNA are similar enough to produce a viable embryo ... By backcrossing hybrid offspring, breeders could then produce a more pure lineage over time." http://lnkd.in/dMx5dtr View in LinkedIn

MAMMOTH GENOME PROJECT AT PENN STATE UNIVERSITY "has sequenced roughly 85% of the mammoth’s DNA ... aims to resurrect the long-dead species by retrieving frozen sperm from the tundra and creating an elephant/mammoth hybrid." http://lnkd.in/dMx5dtr View in LinkedIn

MICROPROPAGATION. "Flowers regenerated from 30,000-year-old frozen fruits ... While animals are still difficult to clone, cloning plants is a far different matter. If you have a clean piece of living tissue, even a very tiny one, putting it in a sterile petri dish with the right combination of plant hormones can cause it to sprout roots, leaves, or both." http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/34304/how-did-they-bring-the-plants-back-from-extinction View in LinkedIn

A MAMMOTH QUESTION. "The mammoth is probably the most likely species to go un-extinct anytime soon ... we are close to having sequenced their entire genome ... . But knowing a species’ sequence doesn’t mean it could be cloned ... either ... stitch together a synthetic version, or alter an elephant’s genome ... We can’t do either yet." http://lnkd.in/dMx5dtr View in LinkedIn

NO BIO-STARTER BREW. "But will it be possible to make an organism using just the genomic information obtained from an extinct species alone, with no material from a modern species? Would this result in a living organism? Here his answer was “No.” http://lnkd.in/dSrVBvg View in LinkedIn

MAMMOTH DNA. "The animals are well preserved in the frozen tundra, but probably not consistently enough for their DNA to remain intact and viable for cloning ... fragmented “ancient DNA” has been recovered and reassembled. There is the challenge of the sheer size of the genome ... nearly twice the size of the human genome." http://lnkd.in/dYTym8q View in LinkedIn

MITOCHONDRIAL DNA FROM WOOLY MAMMOTHS. "The Penn State team and Willerslev's group obtained hair from 10 woolly mammoths from a wide arc across northern Siberia. The mtDNA from the hairs showed the existence of two distinct groups of mammoth." http://lnkd.in/dEMV2_N View in LinkedIn