The last pack of mammoths on Earth met what may perhaps be considered as the most depressing end for a species. Isolated on a spit of island off the coast of Siberia, they were sickly and weak due to centuries of chronic inbreeding. No longer fertile and with some of them suffering from neurological problems, the last of the mammoths were beyond hope, and they eventually went extinct around 4,000 years ago.
Today, the only mammoth you’re likely to see is a hulking reconstruction in a museum — the size and structure of its bones drawing an outline of the beast. But there’s more to mammoths than their skeletons. In a time when the possibility of bringing the pachyderms back to life regularly makes headlines, researchers are studying how the mammoths lived and died through their genes as well as their bones.
Unfortunately, when it comes to bringing these mammoths from extinction, there are a lot of factors to be considered, and, as of now, it may not be possible. The only thing we can do right now is to modify a cell of a close relative of a mammoth, and turn it into something mammoth-like, but…
… it wouldn’t be a true revival but a best-guess version that leaves quite a bit out.
More details about this over at Discover.
(Image Credit: Thomas Quine/ Wikimedia Commons)