Russian Scientists Set Out to Create a Real-life ‘Jurassic Park’ with Clones

Monica Sanchez | September 2, 2015
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A group of Russian scientists have set out to create a real-life “Jurassic Park” by recreating "pre-ice age environmental conditions" and cloning or "resurrecting" ancient species with the DNA found in their remains.

Russia Today reports,

“The new laboratory at the Mammoth Museum of the Institute of Applied Ecology at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk has begun searching through its vast library of samples that were found nearly perfectly preserved in the extreme cold conditions of the Arctic, according to Ogonek magazine.

“Scientists hope to extract live DNA by carefully scanning through more than 2,000 rare exhibits contained in the lab, which is especially equipped to preserve tissue samples in freezers of -87 degrees Celsius. The new lab will also be used to swiftly analyze any newly found samples, without the risk of damaging them while transferring them to a distant laboratory.

The researchers’ overarching aim is to create a real-life ‘Jurassic Park’ (or scientifically speaking a ‘Pleistocene Park’) full of extinct animals living in a specially designed nature reserve located on the Kolyma River in Yakutia. The project is currently aiming to recreate the pre-ice age environmental conditions, including the grasslands, by the time the extinct animals are resurrected.”

The race to "resurrect" dinosaurs is taking place across the globe, but to-date such efforts have fallen short due to the limited life expectancy of DNA.

Scientists at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Siberia are hopeful for success, having one of the world’s best-preserved woolly mammoth carcasses – 39,000 year-old Yuka – at their disposal.

Aside from woolly mammoths, scientists hope to recover DNA from the early ancestors of bison, bulls, cave bears, and cave lions.

To see how scientists begin to extract DNA, check out the short video clip below.  

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