Baby Mammoth Remains Found
One of the best preserved mammoths ever found was recently unearthed in Siberia. Even her eyes are intact, though her tail seems to have been bitten off.
So now there's talk, again, of cloning a mammoth. The article seems to be saying that, given viable DNA from the specimen which is not guaranteed by any means, we now have the technology to produce a hybrid mammoth/elephant, if not a pureblooded clone. But there are ethical questions- should you resurrect extinct prehistoric animals? The mammoth is about the only one we could, since they are the only ones who were thoughtful enough to be buried in ice. Where would the mammoth live? Personally I would love to see a living mammoth- it would be amazing. But would it be right? I don't know. I suspect that if they do it, though, it will mean there is an associated ethical imperative to resurrect as many of the extinct modern species that have died off due to human intervention. So that would be a good side-effect.
A good book on the technology (though now out of date) and ethics of this issue is Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant, by Richard Stone.
Anyways, here is a great mastodon sketch Travis Hanson made for me a few months ago: