A jumbo task… £11m to bring extinct mammoth back to life on Arctic tundra

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Scientists are looking to return massive mammals back to the Arctic tundra after £11million was raised by the bioscience and genetics company Colossal towards the project.

Mammoths last roamed the globe 10,000 years ago.

The plan has been under discussion for a decade but the cash boost could help the scheme become closer to reality.

George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, said: “Our goal is to make a cold-resistant elephant, but it is going to look and behave like a mammoth.

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“Not because we are trying to trick anybody, but because we want something functionally equivalent to the mammoth, that will enjoy its time at -40C, and do all the things that elephants and mammoths do, in particular knocking down trees.”

But Dr Victoria Herridge, an evolutionary biologist at the Natural History Museum, said: “Not all scientists suspect creating mammoth-like animals in the lab is the most effective way to restore the tundra.”

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