The Mammoth

A Siberian laboratory has opened with the goal of cloning extinct species found with frozen and preserved DNA, according to a Russian magazine.

The Mammoth Museum Institute of Applied Ecology, at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, opened in August – and is planning to recreate species from DNA extracted in the extreme cold of the nearby Arctic, according to Ogonek magazine.

The laboratory is the culmination of years of planning to recreate woolly mammoths and other long-gone species whose remains have nonetheless survived the millennia and could potentially be recreated through cloning, the Russian laboratory’s officials reportedly told the magazine.

The “revival of the mammoth” is on par with the quest for the Higgs boson and the cure for cancer – and could be a huge breakthrough for Russian science, according to the magazine.

Freezers plunging to -87 degrees Celsius preserve millions of extinct specimens, claimed Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum.