A team of international scientists has published the complete genome of the woolly mammoth1 - a creature which became extinct thousands of years ago.
The study, published in the Journal Current Biology, will probably cheer up a team of Harvard University researchers who've been planning to add mammoth genes2 to the stem cells of elephants. Their aim is to find out how the mammoth's adaptations helped them survive the ice ages.
The Long Now Foundation, based in San Francisco, is financing the Harvard team and has daring plans for the future if the species is resurrected. It says on its website that its goal is "to produce new mammoths that are capable of repopulating the vast tracts3 of tundra4 and boreal forest in Eurasia and North America."
They say: "The goal is not to make perfect copies of extinct woolly mammoths, but to focus on the mammoth adaptations needed for Asian elephants to live in the cold climate of the tundra."
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