Woolly mammoths’ genes decoded, bringing clues to how they died out and how they could come back

[Geee]

UK Independent:

Researchers have decoded the DNA of two woolly mammoths, giving further clues to how they died out and leaving us with full instructions of how to put one back together again.

 

The research found that woolly mammoths, which came about around 700,000 years ago, suffered two huge population shocks that each significantly reduced the number of them around. Eventually, mammoths died out after the remaining ones lived on a remote island where they are thought to have declined as a result of inbreeding that led to genetic problems.

 

The researchers studied two mammoths, one a calf that lived about 45,000 years old and was discovered in Siberia, and a tooth from a mammoth that lived in that last population on an island off the Russian mainland, 4,300 years ago.

 

 

 

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Shades of Jurassic Park