What am I going to do next year at the National Zoo & Conservation Institute? Robert Fleischer: Exploring the potential for science beyond the Standard Model

That prospect is exciting, says Robert Fleischer, the senior scientist at the Center for conservativism genotyping at the National Zoo &Conservation Institute in Washington.

“If I was a 12-year-old in my science class in junior high school I’d probably think this was pretty cool,” Fleischer says. “And I still think it’s pretty cool.”

An interesting piece of skin of an extinct pachyderm that wasn’t a sheepy mammoth, and how to get rid of it

It is really exciting to be able to look at an extinct creature and confirm it is still alive. I can see this gene was on. That gene was on. The gene wasn’t working. Isn’t it surprising? The person said, “Aiden says.” It’s exciting to be able to do all these things in a woolly mammoth.

“The preservation of genetic architectures from the woolly mammoth is really remarkable,” Flessa says. “But just because you can do it, doesn’t mean that it should be done. A genetically modified Asian elephant isn’t a woolly mammoth. It would be irresponsible to release such an animal into the wild.

And Karl Flessa, a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona agrees on the scientific accomplishment and the foolishness of trying to bring back the extinct pachyderm.

Lynch says there’s an enormous potential for “unintended consequences”. “Just think about all the other invasive species that are in the world. You don’t really know the effect that species is going to have in the environment until it gets there.”

The man isn’t a fan of bringing the mammoth back. The unintended consequences of that could be disastrous, he says. The elephants that still live on the planet would benefit greatly from such a project.

An associate professor of biological sciences at the University at Buffalo who was not involved in the research thinks it is cool.

“It was a piece of a mammoth skin that was, you know, wooly. The assistant professor that worked on the research says that it was indeed woolly mammoth skin. “And that’s actually not as trivial as it sounds because very often the hair would be lost. This one was hairy. That is actually an interesting sign that this is a sample of substantial quality. And that immediately piqued our attention.”

We had some very bad ideas. I’m a little ashamed to admit it,” Aiden told NPR. That piece of mammoth on eBay looked good, we said. Let’s try that.’ It is kind of cringe to tell you that. Ebay is a bad place to get your mammoth samples.”

Creating a three-dimensional DNA chromosome of an extinct creature: A collaboration between Aiden and a team of scientists

“In so doing, you would be able to see exactly how that chromosome was shaped in a living cell, and you’d be able to both get a deeper understanding of the genomes of ancient and extinct species and how those genomes worked – which genes were on and off in particular tissues,” Aiden says.

But there’s only so much scientists could learn from snippets of DNA. So Aiden and his colleagues launched an international effort to try to recreate the three-dimensional structure of the DNA, including the chromosomes, of an extinct creature.

For years, scientists have been able to peer back in time by analyzing fragments of ancient DNA recovered from bones, fossilized teeth, mummies and even strands of hair.

The Director of the Center for GenomeArchitecture at the Brazos College of Medicine in Houston says that it is exciting. “We think it’s going to be very valuable.”

New insights into the biology of a creature that has long sparked fascination should be provided by the advance. The work could help efforts to create a living version of the animal.

The accomplishment, described Thursday in the journal Cell, marks what is believed to be the first time scientists have been able to produce a multidimensional version of the genome of a complex extinct species.

The structure and number of the mammoth’s chromosomes were similar to the structure and activity of those in modern elephants.

The team’s experiments on freeze-dried beef jerky, which was subjected to extreme tests including being shot with a gun and run over with a car, confirmed the researchers’ theory: the jerky shattered like glass but its chromosomes remained intact.

Vctor Mayar, a specialist in ancient populations at the University of Copenhagen who did not take part in the study, says no one would think that ancient DNA stays in its current shape. He says seeing that it can be cool.

It is believed the potential for recovering ancient DNA extends beyond what was thought possible, as long as the conditions are ideal.