Free Republic

A biotech company that hopes to resurrect extinct species said Wednesday that it has reached an important milestone: the creation of a long-sought kind of stem cell for the closest living relative of the woolly mammoth. "This is probably the most significant step in the early stages of this project," said George Church, a geneticist at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who co-founded Colossal Biosciences in Dallas. The woolly mammoth was a big, shaggy species of elephant that roamed the tundra before going extinct thousands of years ago. Colossal has been working to bring the mammoth, the...

Scientists are analyzing the perfectly preserved remains of a prehistoric horse in a bid to clone the now-extinct animal. Recently discovered in permafrost in the Siberian region of Yakutia, the skin, hair, hooves and tail of the carcass are all preserved. The remains are estimated to be 30,000 to 40,000 years old. Experts believe that the foal was about 2 months old when it died. Semyon Grigoryev, head of the Mammoth Museum in the regional capital of Yakutsk, was surprised to see the perfect state of the find. He noted it's the best-preserved ancient foal found to date. The Siberian...

The frozen carcass of the dark-brown baby horse is from an extinct species is up to 40,000 years old, and the animal was perfectly preserved in the Siberian permafrost in the Batagai crater in Yakutia, the coldest region in Russia. Leading researcher of the laboratory of Mammoth Museum Dr Semyon Grigoriev said: 'Fortunately, the animal's muscle tissues were undamaged and well preserved, so we managed to get samples of this unique find for biotechnology research.' South Korean cloning expert Professor Hwang Woo Suk, currently in Yakutsk, told The Siberian Times that a joint bid is underway to find a living...

Alaska's first full mammoth skeleton may be lurking under Arctic lake. When an aquatic ecologist was surveying shallow lakes in Northwest Alaska three years ago, she and the pilot who traveled with her came upon an unusual sight in the treeless Arctic region: a pair of terns that kept flying around and perching on what appeared to be a log sticking out of a muddy area. The protruding object, it turns out, was no log. It was the large and well-preserved leg bone of a woolly mammoth. Right by it was another bone, perfectly articulated, that was clearly from the...

Woolly mammoth ivory jewelry is everywhere. Luxury retailer Stanley Korshak in Dallas can't keep it in stock. Michelle Obama has been photographed numerous times wearing it. For CFDA design darling Monique Péan and Ivory Jacks in Bothel, Washington, that create jewelry out of the material, business has been good. The First Lady wore woolly mammoth jewelry by Monique Péan on a trip to Mexico a few months ago (pictured above and below)-specifically earrings, cuffs and strands. She wore the cuffs again recently to greet President Obama on his 49th birthday. The cuffs go for $4,480 to $7,420 at www.twistonline.com. The...

November 20, 2008: The extinct woolly mammoth’s genome has been sequenced by the scientists. This mammoth existed on the surface of earth some 10,000 years ago. Scientists believe that ultimately they will be able to create extinct creatures that existed within the last 100,000 years, provided there is suitable genetic material available. Stephan C. Schuster, the Penn State University biochemistry professor who co-authored the new research, said, “Previous studies on extinct organisms have generated only small amounts of data.” He further added, “Our data set is 100 times more extensive than any other published data set for an extinct species,...

Seoul, South Korea (LifeNews.com) -- Disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, whose team became an international laughingstock after they faked their entirety of their embryonic stem cell research, appeared in court on Monday in a trial about charges that he embezzled public and private research funds. Hwang admitted he spent more than one million in attempting to clone a mammoth. Hwang was indicted in May by South Korean government prosecutors who say that Hwang misspent public and private dollars intended for research. On Monday, Hwang admitted he spent part of the money, some $1.05 million in failed attempts to clone mammoths, extinct...