Geneticists Announce They Have Resurrected Woolly Mammoth’s Trunk Only
In a watershed breakthrough in the effort to bring back extinct species by synthesizing their DNA in a laboratory, a team of geneticists announced Friday they had resurrected a woolly mammoth’s trunk, though not any other part of the animal. “While we admittedly fell short of our ultimate objective—giving life to this magnificent Ice Age creature so it could once more roam the steppes of the frozen tundra—we are nonetheless pleased with our success in creating a living, breathing mammoth trunk,” said David Silva, a researcher at the genetic engineering firm Colossal who spoke to reporters at the company’s headquarters, where lab assistants placed the mammoth appendage on a conference room chair only to watch it flail around and flop itself down onto the floor. “Our plan now is to just keep at it, moving on to the tail, the tusks, and then the feet—which will be hard, because they were absolutely huge, and we have to grow everything from a few cells in a test tube. Read More…