Scientists are on the brink of resurrecting several extinct species. Emblematic species such as the woolly mammoth, the dodo and the thylacine (also known as the Tasmanian tiger) could soon walk the planet again, according to "de-extinction" companies and scientists.
De-extinction starts with DNA samples from the lost species. Sometimes this is the complete genome; other times, scientists may splice genes from the extinct species into the genome of a closely related living animal. Then, in a process known as nuclear transfer, researchers implant this sequence into an egg cell taken from the same related living species. The resulting animal is genetically similar to the extinct one.
