But how close are we from a Jurassic-Park-like scenario5 in which extinct animals are brought back to life? Very far, according to some experts. Professor Beth Shapiro, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote a book called How to Clone a Mammoth. She is sceptical and believes there is an enormous difference between an embryo6 in a lab dish and a living animal with some of the characteristics of a mammoth. And we can't even be sure if the elephant's surrogate pregnancy7 would be successful.
Woolly mammoths died out some 4,000 years ago. It might take a long time before the fantasy of the Steven Spielberg movies is turned into reality. And that's fine for those of us who can remember that the resurrected dinosaurs8 on the screen gave the humans a pretty hard time. If mammoths come back, maybe it would be a good idea to start running...
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