Scientists are trying to clone an extinct horse from a Siberian foal mummy



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Russia now plans a "paleo park"

When I read the famous Michael Crichton Jurassic Park in the 1990s, I knew enough about the approach to feel that cloning could be used to bring back missing animals.

It seems that Crichton's novel was indeed prophetic, as scientists try to extract cells from the mummy of a 40,000-year-old colt from Siberia, in order to use the sample to reconstruct extinct species .

According to the Siberian Times, the male horse was discovered last month in the permafrost, in Batagaika crater, which locals call superstitiously the "door of the underworld". Yakutsk, an isolated town in eastern Siberia, is often mentioned. city ​​in the world.

A team of scientists from South Korea and Russia estimates that the foal, called Horsekaya or Lena, was about 20 days old when he died. The horse species, now extinct, is between 30,000 and 40,000 years old. Due to extremely cold temperatures, the animal's tissues have been sufficiently preserved for scientists to obtain samples.

Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Mammoth Museum Lab, told The Times that the horse was "well preserved" and a "unique find". The carcass of the horse is undamaged and even his hair is intact – which, according to Grigoriev, is "Incredibly rare for such ancient discoveries."

It is interesting to note that Russia is planning to create a new cloning facility worth £ 4.5 million, a 'Paleo Park', to revive the extinct mammoth and woolly rhinoceros and To other extinct species.

The cloning laboratories – some have sunk deep into the permafrost – aim to expand the research of Russian scientists who are already working closely with South Korean specialists in the hope of restoring extinct species.


Yakutsk is the capital of the diamond-rich Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia, where 80% of the Pleistocene and Holocene animal samples with preserved soft tissue were made.

The project of the new center will be unveiled at the 4th Eastern Economic Forum, organized by President Putin on 11 September in Vladivostok.

It will aim to study extinct animals from living cells and restore creatures such as the woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave lions and long-lost horse breeds, The Siberian Times reported.

Others are turning to the most famous predator of the Paleolithic: the saber-toothed tiger. Scientists are taking the same research approach as Crichton's bestseller, as they plan to use the genetic code of a living species to bring back their missing family.

San Francisco interior designer Ken Fulk, known for his eclectic style, his lavish parties, his tech / social media clients, including Sean Parker and his articles on Vanity Fair, today published a release claiming that his love of taxidermy a rare saber tooth tiger from his collection at the Revive & Restore Foundation of Stewart Brand, with the goal of using cells to clone a cat with the help of the lab Palaeogenomics of UC-Santa Cruz.

"The 10,000-year-old Fulk specimen, which was given to him on his annual vacation at the fishing village of Noatak, Alaska, was found frozen in an ice cave near Eschscholtz Bay," he said. the press release. "By extracting DNA from the fur and claws of this incredibly preserved saber-toothed tiger, geneticists from the University of California's paleogenomics laboratory in Santa Cruz could be able to bring the large prehistoric cat back to life." extinction. Using the genome of an Asian lion as a model, scientists will attempt to recode the Smilodon genome to create a living cell that would then be used with existing cloning technology.

These developments have important ethical considerations and safety issues because the niches of these animals no longer exist and live animals may not be immune to the pathogens they may have.

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