Washington Free Beacon A woolly mammoth replica / Wikimedia Commons Scientist plans to clone mammoth, said CNN in 2011.
National Geographic ran a series of confident headlines, including 2017 s We Could Resurrect the Woolly Mammoth. Here s How. In 2018, History.com reported, Scientists Say They Could Bring Back Woolly Mammoths Within Two Years. It s more than two years later, and the mammoths have not returned. So how close are we to seeing a species brought back from extinction?
Source: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via Getty Images
Recent Stories in Culture
The short answer: Mammoths are likely as far away as they ve ever been. But global efforts to bring them back continue, fueled by the same fervor that launched efforts over a decade ago. And labs continue to make scientific breakthroughs, from assembling almost the entire mammoth genome to growing hair and fat out of petri dishes.