Scientists Have Bred Woolly Mice on Their Journey to Bring Back the Mammoth

Recreating the species from that raw biological material is relatively straightforward in principle, if exceedingly painstaking in practice. The work involves pinpointing the genes responsible for the traits that separate the mammoth from the Asian elephant--its close evolutionary relation--editing an elephant stem cell to express those traits, and introducing the stem cell into an elephant embryo. In the alternative, scientists could edit a newly conceived Asian elephant zygote directly. Either way, the next step would be to implant the resulting embryo into the womb of a modern-day female elephant. After 22 months--the typical elephant gestation period--an ice age mammoth should, at least theoretically, be born into the computer-age world.