Undoing extinction – let's talk about the mammophant in the room

Don't book your tickets for Pleistocene Park just yet: de-extincting mammoths is a nice thought experiment that's overstayed its welcome

De-extincting mammoths is back in the news this week. It's been a few years so it was time for a return to science-fiction-land, much to the undoubted chagrin of science communicators, palaeontologists and museum professionals who are probably already fielding questions about mammoths' proposed return to the land of the living.

We're told that scientists are "on the brink" of resurrecting mammoths through some whizz bang science and some nice juicy quotes about the breakthrough being "in a couple of years". The rest of the story and headlines write themselves.