Japanese scientists have successfully cloned mice who's bodies where frozen for as long as 16 years and have postulated that the technique could be used to resurrect mammoths and other extinct species.
"Cloning animals by nuclear transfer provides an opportunity to preserve endangered mammalian species," they wrote.
"However, it has been suggested that the 'resurrection' of frozen extinct species (such as the woolly mammoth) is impracticable, as no live cells are available, and the genomic material that remains is inevitably degraded," they said.
Unlike other cloning attempts the mice used in these experiments where not cryogenicly frozen which posed a unique challenge as freezing causes cells to burst and can damage the DNA inside.
