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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent

‘Rewinding human mistakes’: can IVF save the world’s most threatened species?

A ranger reaches out towards female northern white rhino Najin, 30, one of the last two northern white rhinos on the planet
Najin, 30, one of the last two northern white rhinos on Earth. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

Najin and her daughter Fatu, the world’s last two living northern white rhinos, inhabit an evolutionary twilight zone: the last living proof of a lineage that stretches back millions of years but is functionally extinct.

But this week, scientists came a step closer to bringing the species back from the brink of oblivion by performing the first successful embryo transfer in a related white rhino species.

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