Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Back from the dead

In 2002 Akira Iritani, from Kinki University in Japan, announced plans for his team to create 'Pleistocene Park' - a home for resurrected woolly mammoths, extinct for approximately 3,500 years. Later additions would include the woolly rhinoceros, which hasn't roamed the Earth for more than 10,000 years.

It is a race against time, partly because climate change is melting the permafrost in Siberia, uncovering ancient animal remains at an increasing rate. Once uncovered, the specimens begin to rot, degrading DNA that may have remained intact for eons.

(Via PAG E-News.)


I love the irony in the last paragraph.

No comments: