U.S. Ecological History Park that would return parts of the country to conditions similar to the distant past while also preserving animals that are threatened in Africa. In Siberia, a similar project is already underway. Scientists are working to restore a large area of wetlands and forest to the dry landscape that existed more than 10,000 years ago by re-introducing herbivores and predators they think will alter the biology and ecology. One goal: learn what caused the woolly mammoths to go extinct. Meanwhile, another group announced plans to search for frozen woolly mammoth sperm DNA, which they would inject into a female elephant; after several generations of offspring by controlled procedures, they would create a beast that is 88 percent mammoth. Amid all this, another team decoded part of the genome of an extinct bear!"/>

In one of the year's more offbeat suggestions, scientists proposed introducing elephants, lions and camels to create a U.S. Ecological History Park that would return parts of the country to conditions similar to the distant past while also preserving animals that are threatened in Africa. In Siberia, a similar project is already underway. Scientists are working to restore a large area of wetlands and forest to the dry landscape that existed more than 10,000 years ago by re-introducing herbivores and predators they think will alter the biology and ecology. One goal: learn what caused the woolly mammoths to go extinct. Meanwhile, another group announced plans to search for frozen woolly mammoth sperm DNA, which they would inject into a female elephant; after several generations of offspring by controlled procedures, they would create a beast that is 88 percent mammoth. Amid all this, another team decoded part of the genome of an extinct bear!