Jurassic Park redux: The plan to clone a wooly mammoth

Tuesday, November 18, 2014, 11:31 AM - Scientists say we can do it. Maybe Ian Malcolm would say we shouldn't.

The plan to clone the long-extinct mammoth seems to be moving forward, according to a new report by ITV News that a 40,000-year-old mammoth carcass uncovered in Siberia last year may have enough DNA to make such a project feasible.

The animal, called "Buttercup" by its discovers, is believed to have been 50 years old when it was apparently killed by predators.

But the process of using Buttercup's DNA to clone a modern-day individual would be very difficult. Given the amount of time that has passed, the animal's DNA has degraded somewhat.

"Bringing back the mammoth either through cloning or genetic engineering would be an extremely long process. We're trying hard to make this possible within our generation," said South Korean geneticist Insung Hwang in a report from the New York Daily News.

Even if it were possible, some scientists, including some actually involved in Buttercup's discovery, think it would be unethical.

Clones don't exactly grow in vats, so a modern-day elephant would have to be a surrogate to carry the clone to term, paleobiologist Dr. Tori Herridge told the Telegraph. Even if it survives, its mother may not.

"Cloning a mammoth will require you to experiment on probably many, many Asian elephants," she told the Telegraph.

And once you've cloned one, what happens next? It would be the only one of its species, and although it would be a gold mine of information on the Ice Age giants, it would be doomed to a life in captivity.

As the story progresses - a documentary on Buttercup's autopsy is due to be shown on the U.K.'s Channel 4 later this month - the next step would depend on whether or not there's even enough material in the remains to make cloning possible, which is no sure thing.

MAMMOTH IN THE CITY: You find them in the weirdest places. Watch below for a report on one specimen found on a construction site in Seattle.