Scientist Plans to Clone Woolly Mammoth

I've been waiting for this since I was 7 years old and read a story in National Geographic about scientists finding a well-preserved Mammoth in the arctic tundra that still had plant matter in its stomach.

Years ago I read an article titled "Our genes are not us" (something like that) that touched on the problem of cloning a wooly mammoth.<p>As I understand it, the problem is that the same genes can produce a different result. An example of this is the caterpillar and the butterfly - same genes but different expression. External factors can change how the genes are expressed. External factors include when and how long the fetus is exposed to certain chemicals in utero.

This is off topic but it reminded me that the book Mammoth by John Varley (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-John-Varley/dp/0441012817/ref=nosim/hz0d-20" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-John-Varley/dp/0441012817/ref=...</a>) was a really fun read, though it has nothing to do with cloning.

Neat - but why does the article read as though it had been translated from another language? "Propositioning"?

Next up : recreate the Thylacine.<p>That's the one I want to see brought back from extinction. Though I'm not sure that any suitable DNA still exists.

Reminded me of this: <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126905.000-ten-extinct-beasts-that-could-walk-the-earth-again.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126905.000-ten-extin...</a>

Off topic, but, wow was I surprised to see something from PC Magazine! It's been years since that site had anything other than month old news and reviews of year old products to offer!

Somehow I hope this will not succeed. Although exciting we may be getting careless about animal extinction because we can 'resurrect' them later.

...every year for 20 years

Jurassic Park in 2015... yesss! This is exciting, I'll be one of the first to buy a ticket when these end up in zoos and theme parks.<p>My only question, if anyone can answer, what about their immune system compared to our own, will they be more susceptible to diseases/infections/sickness etc?

wolly mammoth steak, i can already smell you... yummm...