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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

CONSERVATION VS DE-EXTINCTION. "We protect endangered species, conservationists retort (and most of the public agrees), in order to preserve the richest biodiversity we can, to retain creatures that have important ecological roles, or that people love ... All those reasons apply to bringing back extinct species, plus some." http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_case_for_de-extinction_why_we_should_bring_back_the_woolly_mammoth/2721/ View in LinkedIn

NINE EXTINCT SPECIES GENOMES. "Whole genomes ... have been shotgun-sequenced and reassembled from eight extinct species so far. The woolly mammoth is one of them; early next year the passenger pigeon will be the ninth ... Research ... is now under way. Encouraging answers are not guaranteed." http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_case_for_de-extinction_why_we_should_bring_back_the_woolly_mammoth/2721/ View in LinkedIn

RARE SPECIES INBREEDING PROBLEM: "They lose fecundity (often due to increasing homozygosity of deleterious genes) ... The new genomic editing techniques should be able to restore heterozygosity pretty easily in living genomes. It may even be possible to revive "extinct alleles" from museum specimens or fossils." http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_case_for_de-extinction_why_we_should_bring_back_the_woolly_mammoth/2721/ View in LinkedIn

DE-EXTINCTION SPECIES CANDIDATES. "Criteria are emerging for determining which animal species are possible candidates for genetic rescue or genetic assistance. This list encompasses technical considerations that would make de-extinction feasible for these species." This is far from a complete list. http://lnkd.in/dmQ9fPi View in LinkedIn