
Imagine taking the luxury train across the Russian countryside heading across Siberia. Then suddenly beside the train appear a herd of massive Woolly Mammoth's are grazing! What a sight it would be to behold. Such an event is not totally out of the realm of possibility.
In fact, it might be possible through DNA to bring back not only the Woolly Mammoth but also the Tasmanian Tiger (below) or the Moa. Science could make it possible to recreate these magnificent creatures or at least a version close to them. The question is should they bring them back.

Why not?
National Geographic recently has an article that examines the chances of bringing back a number of extinct animals. The odds are tough but the research could go a long way to saving animals that could disappear in the next years.
Besides wouldn't it be amazing to see a herd of Woolly Mammoth's running along side the that train? The magazine reports on the technology:
National Geographic News asked Hendrik Poinar, a molecular evolutionary geneticist and biological anthropologist at the Ancient DNA Centre at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, if we might soon see the gigantic land mammals roaming the steppe again. Poinar will speak about the emerging technology at the TEDx Conference on DeExtinction in Washington this month.
"People were painting pictures of woolly mammoths in caves in France 35,000 years ago, so we have this amazing history with them," Poinar said.
Poinar's team isolates DNA and proteins from fossils and preserved remains, and then uses sophisticated sequencing and analysis tools to answer questions about species extinctions, evolution, and even the spread of infectious diseases. Poinar has tested relatively well-preserved samples from mammoth carcasses uncovered in the Yukon and Siberia. The mammoth remains had been entombed in the permafrost (permanently frozen ground), so degradation of their DNA had been slowed over time, Poinar explained.
In 2006, Poinar's lab began to map large sections of the mammoth's genome, aided by new high-input DNA sequencers, which can quickly analyze millions of fragments. This is important, because even the most well-preserved mammoth specimens have DNA strands that have fallen apart into countless smaller sequences, since the complex molecule is highly susceptible to decay (Poinar said DNA starts breaking down as soon as a living thing dies.)
"You'll never really create an exact genome because when you have short fragments there are no good ways to know how many repeats of sequences there are," said Poinar. But scientists can compare the fragments to each other to find overlapping areas, and then piece together much of the strand. Then, they can map those regions against the DNA of the closest living relative of the mammoth—the Asian elephant.
"We can in theory use that information to modify existing chromosomes with what we imagine to be mammoth substitutions," said Poinar. The result would be an elephant-mammoth hybrid, and such a creature could theoretically be implanted into the womb of a mother elephant. Get the formula right, and the offspring might be "a mammoth in the eye of the beholder," said Poinar.
Poinar asked why scientists would want to do that in the first place. "Is it because we have this ability, to push the boundaries of what's possible for the sake of innovation?" he asked.
Poinar added, "Would it give conservation movements something new to generate excitement, or does it generate apathy, so people ask 'why do we need to care about saving them in the wild if we can bring them back?'"
Poinar said he thought parts of Siberia could support reborn populations of mammoths, and that they would likely be able to survive, even in a warming climate, because they had existed across such a wide range.
"That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do," Poinar added. "As much as the kid in me would love to see these fantastic species plundering across the north, it's hard to see a reason why we should unless we think this technology could give us tools for conservation." He explained that the real win would be adapting such techniques to bolster the numbers of current endangered species, such as mountain gorilla