Campaign to clone the woolly mammoth restarted

• The long extinct woolly mammoth could be resurrected in under four years, thanks to cloning technology breakthrough.
• A technique pioneered in 2008 by Teruhiko Wakayama of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, Japan, was successful in cloning a mouse from the cells of another mouse frozen for 16 years.
• According to scientists, woolly mammoths became extinct about 10,000 BC when a comet exploded in the earth's atmosphere and caused fires.
• Iritani intends to use Wakayama's technique to identify the nuclei of viable mammoth cells before extracting the healthy ones.
• The nuclei will then be inserted into the egg cells of an African elephant, which will act as the surrogate mother for the mammoth.
• Iritani said he estimates that another two years will be needed before the elephant can be impregnated, followed by the approximately 600-day gestation period.
• He has announced plans to travel to Siberia in the summer to search for mammoths in the permafrost and to recover a sample of skin or tissue that can be as small as 3cm square.