And mammoths are bloody in the eyes

The discovery and study of the Malolyakhovsky mammoth led to the publication in the media of another mammoth pile of articles about the possibility of cloning it. Here is probably the only comment of a sane scientist on this matter.

Biologist: To clone a mammoth, one blood is not enough

Irina Galkina, Lenoblinform

Scientists are considering cloning mammoths using genetic material preserved in their frozen carcasses. A recent discovery near Yakutsk has given new hope that this is real.

The found mammoth, named Malolyakhovsky, is being investigated by scientists of the North-Eastern Federal Institute. The dark brown liquid extracted from his carcass "is hemolysed blood, which contains leukocyte nuclei and hemoglobin," said Victoria Egorova, head of the educational and scientific clinical diagnostic laboratory of the NEFU Medical Clinic on the institute's website.

The rumors surrounding the valuable find were not long in coming: the media are actively discussing the possibility of cloning an ancient animal and recreating it in the modern world.

The editorial board of Lenoblinform asked for a comment to the Doctor of Biological Sciences, bioinformatician Mikhail Sergeevich Gelfand.

"The fact is that a lot of mammoths were found before that," he said in an interview with our correspondent, "but, unfortunately, currently science does not know methods of cloning mammals based only on DNA. Dolly the sheep, popular all over the world, was cloned using a full-fledged cell, and not just genetic material. Therefore, even if we are dealing with good DNA preservation, cloning only on this material is not possible."

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru14.03.2014