Woolly mammoth DNA taken from frozen hairball
Scientists say they are one step closer to a Jurassic Park style revival of the woolly-mammoth thanks to the DNA from a frozen ball of hair.
It may look like something the cat coughed up (or should that be saber-toothed tiger) but the boffins say the DNA they were able to extract has advanced their understanding of the prehistoric beast.
The genetic code they were able to uncover shows the extinct species of elephant was not as different to modern day dumbos as was previously thought.
This mean they might be able to alter the genetic make-up of an modern elephant and recreate the long extinct mammoth.
Hang on, we've all seen the movie and all know how this ends, why are they still doing this.
The team from Penn State sequenced the mammoth's nuclear genome using DNA extracted from the hairs of a mammoth mummy that had been buried in the Siberian permafrost for 20,000 years and a second mammoth mummy that is at least 60,000-years-old.
By using hair, they avoided problems that have bedeviled the sequencing of ancient DNA from bones because DNA can more easily be removed.
Biochemistry and molecular biology expert professor Stephan Schuster said: "Previous studies on extinct organisms have generated only small amounts of data.
"Our dataset is 100 times more extensive than any other published dataset for an extinct species, demonstrating that ancient DNA studies can be brought up to the same level as modern genome projects."
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