The famous Speilberg film based on the novel written by Michael Crichton has popularized the idea of bringing back extinct animals to life--in the form of dinosaurs big and small. But did you know that this idea of Crichton which decades ago may seem a far cry from reality is slowly becoming a possibility?
Mammoths are known to be huge beasts that are closely related to modern elephants that are made distinct by their long, curved tusks and long hair as body covering. The largest known species discovered reaches an average minimum height of five meters. Though the last of them died with the last Ice Age, the very reason for their mass extinction still remains obscure.
There have been a series of unrelated plans to resurrect these giants. A team of Japanese genetic scientists have once planned to scour the Earth for a frozen mammoth specimen that could give them its ancient sperm to be injected to a surrogate mother. This has been a part of a much bigger plan of recreating Jurassic Park in real life but not of dinosaurs but of species from the Ice Age.
Throughout the years scientists are getting closer and closer to this aim.
The pre-historic beast from the famed Ice Age with its shaggy hair everywhere might soon walk
the Earth again. A 25,000 year old fossil mammoth hair found in the Siberian permafrost has proved that compared with bones and muscles, this body part is a better source of ancient DNA. From it, over 3 billion DNA building blocks have been mapped on the first draft, giving out new clues on extinction and evolution for scientists to further study. So far, a good number of interesting findings on evolution have surfaced.The new million dollar study done by Penn State University researchers have already sequenced 80% of the mammoth's gene map. Years from now engineering of mammoth cells may be done.
The famed director Steven Spielberg, may be right in living a quote for skeptical scientists criticizing the Jurassic Park, "This is the science of eventuality."
