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A prehistoric lion cub has been found in permafrost on the bank of Tirekhtykh River of the Abyisky district of Yakutia by local resident Boris Berezhnov. The young beast's head was resting on a paw in frozen ground for up to 50,000 years, as shown in these amazing first pictures. The preservation is so good that it raises hopes of cloning the species back to life, he said. The discovery is seen as better preserved than two tiny cave lion cubs found in the same Siberian region in 2015.

Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of the announcement of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. Her creation left a lasting impact on both the public and the field of developmental biology, experts say. Although Dolly was born in July 1996, Researchers announced Dolly's existence on Feb. 22, 1997. The delay in the announcement was due to the time needed to amass sufficient data on the project, check the data, write and get the manuscript published, said Bruce Whitelaw, the head of the Division of Developmental Biology at the Roslin Institute. Dolly died in February 2003,...

The woolly mammoth vanished from the Earth 4,000 years ago, but now scientists say they are on the brink of resurrecting the ancient beast in a revised form, through an ambitious feat of genetic engineering. Speaking ahead of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston this week, the scientist leading the “de-extinction” effort said the Harvard team is just two years away from creating a hybrid embryo, in which mammoth traits would be programmed into an Asian elephant.

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 10 - Journalists remember him as Jack, an eccentric, heavily armed and at times, it seemed, dangerously unbalanced, middle-aged former American Special Forces soldier, who appeared in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001. Surrounded by armed Afghan guards and rumors that he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, he quickly rose to prominence. In the next two years, he was interviewed by Fox and CBS News, helped write a book called "The Hunt for bin Laden" and said he had discovered evidence in Afghanistan that linked Iraq to Al Qaeda. This week, Jack, a convicted felon...

About four years ago, Kevin Sinclair inherited an army of clones. Very fluffy clones. "Daisy, Debbie, Denise and Diana," says Sinclair, a developmental biologist at the University of Nottingham in England. The sheep are just four of 13 clones that Sinclair shepherds, but they're the most famous because of their relation to Dolly, the sheep that made headlines two decades ago as the first successfully cloned mammal. " 'Sister clones' probably best describes them," Sinclair says. "They actually come from the exactly the same batch of cells that Dolly came from." Recently, Sinclair and his colleagues celebrated the sister clones'...

Scientists are now contemplating the fabrication of a human genome, meaning they would use chemicals to manufacture all the DNA contained in human chromosomes.

For those of us who remember bits and pieces of Greek mythology, or who play lots of role playing video games, a Chimera was a monstrous hybrid creature often depicted as part lion, part goat, and part snake. In today’s world however Chimeras are very real and in this writer’s humble opinion, very disturbing. The word Chimera today refers most often to animals that are gene spliced with other animals creating a kind of hybrid species. As if this attempt at playing God isn’t alarming enough, human cells are being added to pigs, sheep, goats, mice, and other animals that...

This is some news that actually cropped up last month which caught my eye, but we haven’t gotten a chance to circle back to it until now. If you’re in the market for one of the more exotic pet options out there you may have the chance to look into getting yourself a Panthera Leo Spelaea, better known as the Eurasian cave lion. Under most circumstances this would seem like a bit of a tall order because the big cat has been extinct for more than 12,000 years. (Some time during the end of the last ice age.) Up until...

Beijing: The Chinese scientist behind the world’s biggest cloning factory has technology advanced enough to replicate humans, he told AFP, and is only holding off for fear of the public reaction. Boyalife Group and its partners are building the giant plant in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin, where it is due to go into production within the next seven months and aims for an output of one million cloned cows a year by 2020. But cattle are only the beginning of chief executive Xu Xiaochun’s ambitions....

Scientists are one step closer to bringing a woolly mammoth back to life. A new analysis of the woolly mammoth genome has revealed several adaptations that allowed the furry beasts to thrive in the subzero temperatures of the last ice age, including a metabolism that allowed them to pack on insulating fat, smaller ears that lost less heat and a reduced sensitivity to cold. The findings could enable researchers to "resurrect" the ice-age icon — or at least a hybridized Asian elephant with a few of the physical traits of its woolly-haired cousin, said study co-author Vincent Lynch, an evolutionary...

It will definitely be possible within the foreseeable future to bring back the long-extinct woolly mammoth, a top geneticist has said. However, in his regretful opinion such a resurrection should not be carried out. The assertion comes in the wake of a new study of mammoth genetics as compared to their cousins the Asian and African elephants, which live in warm habitats very different from the icy northern realms of the woolly giant. The new study offers boffins many revelations as to the differences which let the elephants and mammoths survive in such different conditions. “This is by far the...

Scientists in the Netherlands are one step closer to producing a viable lab-grown alternative to the conventional beef burger patty. Last year, Professor Mark Post and his team of scientists at the Maastricht University in the Netherlands produced the first prototype of a lab-grown burger. Benefits of this new burger production method include a decrease in animal slaughter, savings in land, water, and energy use required for livestock, and a reduction in greenhouse gases. The project has faced several hurdles, though, not the least of which was the enormous price tag of 250,000 Euros, or $273,000. That was roughly how...

A group of Russian and South Korean researchers has begun their attempt to clone a woolly mammoth, starting by extracting DNA from a spectacularly well-preserved specimen discovered in the Siberian permafrot in 2013. The project is led by Hwang Woo-Suk, a Korean cloning scientist who was the focus of a scandal in 2006 involving fraudulent research on human stem cells. Hwang has had success with animals, however, reportedly creating the world's first cloned dog and several cloned coyotes.

British scientists have announced that they have successfully clone a dinosaur, according to a spokesman from Liverpool’s Jon Moore University... They’ve cloned an Aparosaurus by extracting DNA from a well-preserved fossil, then injected it into a fertile ostrich womb. The dinosaur, nicknamed “Spot” is currently being incubated at the university’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “Ostriches share a lot of genetic traits with dinosaurs,” said Dr. Gerrard Jones, a biology professor at LJMU and the project’s leading scientist. “Their eggshell microstructures are almost identical to those of the Apatosaurus. That’s why the cloning worked so perfectly.” Religious groups and animal rights...

Woolly mammoths are coming back, say cloning scientists In what sounds like it could be the plot for the next Jurassic Park movie, a team of scientists in Siberia says there's a 'high chance' that they will be able to clone a woolly mammoth. The breakthrough comes as a result of last year's discovery of an incredibly well-preserved mammoth carcass, frozen in the permafrost of Siberia's Malolyakhovskiy island. The scientists estimate that the animal is about 43,000 years old, and was 50-60 years old when it died in distress after getting stuck in the ice. In the ten months since...

You hear the squeals of the pigs long before reaching a set of long buildings set in rolling hills in southern China. Feeding time produces a frenzy as the animals strain against the railings around their pens. But this is no ordinary farm. Run by a fast-growing company called BGI, this facility has become the world's largest centre for the cloning of pigs. The technology involved is not particularly novel - but what is new is the application of mass production. The first shed contains 90 animals in two long rows. They look perfectly normal, as one would expect, but...

The bucardo became extinct in 2000, but cells from the last animal were frozen in liquid nitrogen. In 2003, a cloned calf was brought to term but died a few minutes after birth. Now, the scientists will test the viability of the female bucardo's 14-year-old preserved cells. The bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex, calf born through cloning was an historic event: the first "de-extinction", in which a lost species or sub-species was resurrected.

Want to keep Fido in your life forever? How about turning him into some jewelry? Or a record? Grieving pet owners have turned to some creative extremes in order to immortalize their beloved pet. And in honor of National Pet Memorial Day on Sunday, September 8th, we’re showcasing some of the weirdest memorial services out there.How do you remember your pets? Would you ever try any of these methods?1. Hug A Pillow Containing Their AshesIf you’ve ever wanted to give your long gone furry friends a big fat hug, the soft-hearted pillow will let you cuddle up and take a...

The dentist who purchased John Lennon's rotten molar for $31,000 at a 2011 auction now has plans for the tooth: He's getting it genetically sequenced in the hopes of cloning the musician, who died in 1980

A dentist wants to clone John Lennon from his rotten tooth All you need is DNA. A Canadian dentist says he's working with "American scientists" to clone John Lennon from a rotten molar the Beatles singer had extracted in the 1960s. According to the press release (warning: it autoplays a weird parody song, "Love Me Tooth") dentist Michael Zuk bought the tooth at auction for $31,000 and now is working with an unspecified lab to see if they can clone him. Says Zuk: I am nervous and excited at the possibility that we will be able to fully sequence John...