This is truly shocking news for genetic researchers around the world.
The permafrost in Siberia and northern Russia has long been considered by scientists to be a “priceless treasure” of humanity. That layer of ice has existed for tens of thousands of years in extremely cold temperatures, allowing the bodies of creatures that have lain there to be perfectly preserved.
The picture below, for example, is the carcass of a prehistoric Lenskaya horse. The carcass belongs to a foal about 2 weeks old, dead and buried for 42,170 years under the permafrost in Siberia.
A body so perfectly preserved that even the DNA samples were almost intact.
And recently, scientists from Russia and South Korea confidently announced that they could use this corpse to revive the horse species that lived at the same time as the mammoth.
Specifically, experts from Yakutsk University said they had spent 7 months studying the horse’s body, and were completely confident that they could separate the cells needed to clone them.
“Experts are very confident in this project,” – quoted in the report of Yakutsk University. “They will carry out the cell separation until the end of April 2019.” And if successful, the horse species that became extinct 4,000 years ago will once again stride on this Earth.
The plan is for the experts to grow an embryo from the Lenskaya horse and then implant it into the uterus of a present-day mare. They are currently selecting a suitable horse for this historic task.
The research is led by South Korea’s leading cloning expert, Professor Hwang Woo-suk. Professor Hwang is also a member of the mammoth revival project that is currently showing great promise.
The process of processing a horse carcass frozen more than 42,000 years ago
“There are a total of seven Korean researchers involved in this project, and all of them are confident in its results,” said Dr. Lena Grigoryeva, a Russian expert.
Grigoryeva said the first cloning attempt would be made with a Korean horse. “Korean horses are the most suitable species. They have been used in previous cloning experiments, so the technology involved is almost perfect.”
“In addition, the Korean horse has quite ancient origins. It is a descendant of the ancient Mongolian horse breed.”
Another option is to use the Yakut horse – a breed native to eastern Siberia, likely descended from the Lenskaya horse. This horse can survive winters as low as -60°C, meaning it is extremely hardy.
According to Dr. Semyon Grigoryev – an expert from the Mammoth Museum in Yakutsk, if this project is successful, it will be a great encouragement for future mammoth revival projects.
