Revive a 50,000-year-old lion mummy with the same experiment

One of the extinct animals long before the modern human society formed might walk on the ground again, thanks to an experiment like that in a Hollywood movie.

Did you watch the movie "Jurassic Park" - Hollywood's famous Jurassic Park ? In the film, scientists revived extinct dinosaurs millions of years ago thanks to DNA editing techniques .

But there is a strange point. Even if today's gene technology has grown so much that we can easily clone any creature, why can't science help extinct animals re-emerge as in the movie?

Not because the movie is ridiculous! The filmmakers have created a very logical reason, that is, they own a new specimen of dinosaur DNA, stored in the belly of a mosquito in the amber mass. Meanwhile, DNA in fossils of extinct animals cannot be used anymore.

Sample DNA used in the film.

However, the scientific community is now able to bring "Jurrasic Park experiments" into the real world, thanks to a new "perfect" specimen recently discovered. Specifically, it is the body of a cave lion , which is perfectly preserved in the eternal snow ice in Siberia's Tirekhtykh River.

In some ways, he still looks like he's alive.

The cave lion is one of the largest cats in Earth. They live in very cold areas of the Northern Hemisphere, but are extinct from tens of thousands of years ago. And with this finding, experts from Yakutsk (Russia) believe that they will successfully replicate, bringing extinct animals once again on the ground.

Dr. Albert Protopopov is the head of the research team to find this specimen. He said that the bad lion was only 6-8 weeks old when he died, and the reason why he died was still unclear.

"A perfectly preserved specimen, all limbs are still" alive " - he said excitedly.

"There are even no signs of foreign trade on the skin."

The bad lion was only 6-8 weeks old when he died.

It is known that the lion sample was found to be about 46cm long, weighs 4kg. This is the second discovery of Protopopov, after finding two similar lions in 2015. Both times are Eurasian cave lion - which is extinct and can only be left. Known in ancient documents.

An adult Eurasian lion may be about 1.2m tall, 2m long.

An adult Eurasian lion may be about 1.2m tall, 2m long - which is a bit bigger than a normal lion today. They can chase large-sized herbivores, such as horses, reindeer, deer, bison, and even immature mammoth elephants.

Hang lion illustration.

It is unclear why the lions are extinct, but experts believe the cause may be due to the reduced number of bears and deer in the area, making them no longer have food.

2. Reviving a lion from a corpse intact for 12,000 years