MAKING A MAMMOTH MIRACLE

WASHINGTON: It is the elephant in the genomics room … can extinct species be resurrected?

One bioscience firm insists they can, and is intending to use new technology to restore the woolly mammoth to the Arctic tundra.

The company, Colossal, says its “de-extinction” effort has the potential to restore damaged or lost ecosystems and thereby help slow or even halt the effects of climate change.

Woolly mammoths roamed much of the Arctic and co-existed with early humans who hunted them for food and used their tusks as tools.

Colossal says it will insert DNA from woolly mammoths, taken from wellpreserved remains in the permafrost, into Asian elephants to create an “elephantmammoth hybrid”.

Bringing woolly mammoths back from extinction could help save the world from a climate change disaster, some scientists claim.