ClONING MAMMOTHS BY SONG YE WON
Have you seen the movie “ Jurassic Park ? In it , scientists extract the DNA of a dinosaur from a fossilized fy embedded in amber . With tremendous effort , they succeeded in cloning dinosaurs which had gone extinct a long time ago . Cloning means to replicate DNA . For example , if you clone yourself , someone who looks completely the same as you and has the same DNA will be born . In short , cloning mammoths , which had already gone extinct , means to revive mammoths .
Then how can experts clone mammoths ? There are two methods : The frst one is somatic cell nuclear transfer . This method is used in cloning animals . Most mammoths died in cold areas like Siberia , so some of them have been well preserved ( they look just like they are alive ). First , remove the nucleus from a somatic cell of a mammoth and remove the nucleus of an Asian elephant . Next , put the mammoth nucleus in the elephant somatic cell . Lastly , transplant it to a surrogate and stimulate the fertilized egg . The born baby will have the traits of both the mammoth and the Asian elephant .
The second method is genetic scissors : Scientists are trying to correct 1,400,000 genes of Asian elephants with genetic scissors in order to make a mammoth .
Cloning mammoths is very important because it can bring mammoths back from extinction . These days , people realize the signifcance of biodiversity so if we succeed in cloning mammoths , we have a chance to revive other extinct animals .
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