Blueprint for a Woolly Mammoth
CBC Radio | Posted: April 24, 2015 8:35 PM | Last Updated: June 5, 2015
The genome of the woolly mammoth has been decoded
The giant, hairy elephants that used to roam the grasslands of the Arctic have been extinct for thousands of years, but thanks to DNA preserved in permafrost, the genome of the Woolly Mammoth lives again.
Dr. Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist and Director of the Ancient DNA Centre at McMaster University in Hamilton, and colleagues extracted DNA from the remains of two mammoths, one 45,000 years old, and one only 4000 years old.
Careful analysis of the DNA has allowed them to understand how mammoth populations waxed and waned through history, before their ultimate extinction. Dr. Poinar suggests that having the genetic sequence does mean, at least in theory, that bringing the mammoth back could be possible.
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