Mammoth Cloning "within 5 years"

Scientists know how to do it. Cloning the extinct mammoth is just a matter of inserting mammoth DNA into an elephant egg cell, prodding it to divide into more cells, and implanting it into an elephant for gestation. Russian scientist Semyon Grigoriev announced a joint Russian/Japanese project to do it starting next year, using the bone marrow from a recently-discovered mammoth femur. It makes you wonder why they haven't done this already.

What's been missing is woolly mammoth nuclei with undamaged genes. Scientists have been on a Holy Grail-type search for such pristine nuclei since the late 1990s. Now it sounds like the missing genes may have been found.

In an odd twist, global warming may be responsible for the breakthrough.

Warmer temperatures tied to global warming have thawed ground in eastern Russia that is almost always permanently frozen. As a result, researchers have found a fair number of well-preserved frozen mammoths there, including the one that yielded the bone marrow.

We are getting nearer to the "can we do it?" part, but the question "should we do it?" remains. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Wikipedia user WolfmanSF)