In 1984 Technology Review published an article titled "Retrobreeding the Woolly Mammoth" that described an effort by Soviet scientists to bring the woolly mammoth species back from extinction. The technique being used was the insertion of DNA from woolly mammoths found frozen in Siberian ice into elephant cells. The cells were then brought to term inside surrogate elephant mothers. The head of the project was said to be Dr. Sverbighooze Yasmilov. The story was widely reported as a factual event.
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.

---

Page 2 of 2 pages  <  1 2

---

As I recall, the wooly mammoths were wiped out because the grasslands of northern russia were wiped out when the earth cooled turning their habitat into permafrost.
Posted by Jared  on  Sat Mar 31, 2007  at  06:05 PM

---

In response to the putting wooly mammoths in Siberia, sometime between the late 1800's-early 1900's, there was a meteorite that exploded in Siberia, instantly vaporizing everything within a 50 mile radius. the meteorite caused places as far away as London to experience 2 weeks of nonstop light, and it was said that it could happen again, or that deadly amounts of radiation had been given off by it, therefore making siberia an unsuitable place for any form of life that we want to try and keep alive, and if the wooly mammoth died out thousands of years ago, then what makes us think it'll survive any better in this hot(and rapidly getting hotter) climate?
Posted by Person  in  The Universe  on  Mon Apr 02, 2007  at  04:32 PM

---

Justin, Jurassic Park could never happen, due to the fact that we cannot recreate the same exact enviroment that the dinosaurs lived in! We never were able, still are not able, and never will be able to recreate their enviroments exactly. Unless someone is able to create a time machine that actually works... Of course, we could make dinosaurs, but they would die within 20yrs, give or take 5yrs. Oh, well...
Posted by Jack In The Box, the Voice  in  Your Head  on  Mon Jun 04, 2007  at  05:55 AM

---

of course it can be done...hello, does anyone not remember the Humanzee?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_(chimpanzee)


Posted by Evil  on  Mon Jun 04, 2007  at  07:50 PM

---

I knew a guy who swore up and down that this was real, I was suspicious because I had never heard of it and figured I would have if it had actually happened. Then I found out it was an april fool's joke.

It's one thing to clone a member of an extant species by inserting their fresh DNA into the zapped nucleas fo a zygote fo the same species, but to clone an extinct species by putting its long frozen DNA into a zygote of another species is a diffrent thing altogether, nothing even similar to that has ever been accomplished.

Furthermore, the way that article was most frequently reported is that they had actually made halfbreeds by fertilizing elephant ovums with frozen sperm obtained from the mammoth carcases, that's absurd beyond measure!
Posted by John Elson  in  sacramento ca  on  Wed Sep 12, 2007  at  09:26 AM

---

I remember this! It was on discovery channel for a while, i believed every word of it.
Posted by dave hendrix  on  Wed Nov 28, 2007  at  08:59 PM

---

I've also heard of this, not only with mammoths and dinosaurs but also with other extinct creatures and even the possibility of human beings, I think it could really happen. Only time will tell....
Posted by Genasai  on  Wed Dec 05, 2007  at  09:39 PM

---

This isn't a complete joke. There have been some geneticists that have been able to insert a separate and endangered cow species (a clone) into just a regular dairy cow and the dairy cow gave birth to it. Let's not forget the llama/camel hybrid too. Completely laboratory invented species. I saw a special yesterday on these people trying to bring back the Thylacine.
Posted by Lark  in  SC  on  Tue Apr 01, 2008  at  08:47 AM

---

My highschool Biology teacher taught my grade 13 class that this was indeed a factual event. He also told us that the developmental period for an elephant was a number of years so we would have to wait to see if the experiment was a success.

He never told us this was a joke....?
Posted by The Dude  on  Tue Apr 01, 2008  at  04:23 PM

---

There's also an interesting book by Richard Stone "Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant",2003, about scientific work to clone or breed a mammoth.
Posted by Natasha  in  Australia  on  Thu Apr 10, 2008  at  02:10 PM

---

Page 2 of 2 pages  <  1 2

---

Name:

Email (if you want to be notified of responses):

Location:

URL:

Note: To prove that you're a human being, not an automated spam bot, you've got to type in the word you see below. If you register as a member of the site you won't have to do this. Once registered, you'll then also need to login. If you're seeing this notice, and you've already registered, that means you haven't logged in. As a member you also won't have to enter your personal info every time you leave a comment.

Submit the word you see below:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?