By NICHOLAS WADE Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this long time staple of science fiction were a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as...

The experts extracted DNA from samples of mammoth hair to reconstruct the genetic sequence of this Ice Age beast.

There are still stretches missing, but the researchers estimate that the genome is roughly 80% complete.

The work could provide insights into the extinction of the mammoth and also resurrects questions about the viability of cloning long-dead species.

The scientists were aided in their task by the fact that several deep-frozen carcasses of woolly mammoths have been dug out of the permafrost in Siberia.

These conditions are ideal for the preservation of hair, which is a preferred source for the extraction of ancient DNA.

Hair today

If genetic material survives in a sample of hair, almost all of it will belong to the animal that hair is from.

By contrast, when researchers try to extract ancient DNA from bone, it is often swamped with DNA from fungi and bacteria.

The researchers used hair samples from two mammoth specimens recovered from the permafrost.

Many frozen specimens have emerged from the Siberian permafrost Once the researchers had extracted the DNA, they had to estimate how much of it actually came from the mammoth. So they mapped their genome sequence on to that of an African elephant - the mammoth's close relative.

Analysis of the...
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