28,000-Year Old Woolly Mammoth Cells Reactivated by Scientists

Scientists have achieved something remarkable. A little over a month ago, scientists reactivated a couple of cells from a 28,000-year old woolly mammoth. The cells came from an amazingly preserved woolly mammoth that was found in 2010. Now, Kazuo Yamagata and a team of scientists took some cells from the muscle tissue of the woolly mammoth, who has been named Yuka and put them in mouse ovarian cells called oocytes. Then, when incubated, the mammoth cells seemed to be reactivated, yet no cell division happened. Some of the processes needed for cell division were observed though.

Researchers have observed biological activity after transplanting cell nuclei from the 28,000-year-old remains of a woolly mammoth from the Siberian permafrost into mice oocytes. Read the paper, published in @SciReports, here: https://t.co/21TwWRa8aX pic.twitter.com/DkjfoBFSB6

— Nature Research (@nresearchnews) March 12, 2019