The idea of reviving long-extinct creatures has always fascinated the human imagination. Among all extinct animals, the woolly mammoth has become the symbol of this dream — a giant that roamed the icy plains thousands of years ago, now stands on the threshold of a new rebirth. Scientists from different countries are seriously discussing the possibility of its resurrection, and the first experiments in genetic restoration are already yielding real results. The question is only when this ancient giant will reappear on Earth — in a decade, a century, or never. The mammoth as an object of scientific revival The woolly mammoth became extinct about ten thousand years ago, although small populations may have existed on Arctic islands until the middle of the Holocene. Since then, the remains of these animals, perfectly preserved in permafrost, have become an invaluable source of information for science. It is they that have allowed to isolate almost the complete set of mammoth DNA, making it possible to discuss its cloning in earnest. The genetic similarity of the mammoth to modern Asian elephants is another advantage. Their genomes match approximately 99.6%, which means that an elephant can become a surrogate mother for the future hybrid. This idea lies at the heart of the projects to "de-evolve" the mammoth, where the goal is not just a copy of the extinct animal, but an organism that is as close as possible to it in external and biological characteristics. Genetic resurrection: from theory to practice The first attempts to clone the mammoth began at the end of the 20th century, when geneticists learned to extract DNA from ancient tissues. However, the problem was that even in perfectly preserved samples, DNA molecules are severely fragmented. It is impossible to "assemble" a complete genome without losses, which means that cloning in the direct sense, as in the case of Dolly the sheep, remains unattainable. Modern technologies have taken a different path. Scientists use ... Read more