![0.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbJHMJEheSWB8cj9yK3us8BCGTnj9pTeBPQbxQpGV5Xpk/0.jpg)

It seems like technological advancement knows no bounds. The things that we had always thought were beyond humanity’s reach are beginning to become reality and it is reaching a point where we will have the abilities to change the direction of ourselves and every other species in the world.

That is exactly what researchers at Harvard University are trying to do right now by bringing the Woolly Mammoth back from the dead. We all know that it is a species that went extinct around 4000 years ago and this will be humanity’s first try at bringing it back from the dead.

If this experiment is successful, scientists will be able to bring back a lot of different extinct species and not only that, they will be able to save the current endangered species from disappearing too. It is a truly god like ability that we have developed for ourselves.

# How Is This Possible?
![dna-1903318_640.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXRWmhQPemtrroGpCbnKTgC6PCcvnxyi85cAeB1XHZfPX/dna-1903318_640.jpg)

The team will use a technology called CRISPR-Cas9 which is gaining immense popularity for gene editing and the ease and pace with which genetic modification can be carried out using this technology. 

It is a very promising tool in our hands that will allow us to fight diseases in ourselves, plants and animals like never before. This can also be used for a multitude of other purposes like curing blindness and other disabilities, making us resistant to a whole host of diseases, alter the state of any given species to give it features that are suited to us humans.

The ethics and morality of the various applications of this technology are still being debated and the most common question being asked is, “Should we play god?” 

In any case, if used properly, this could change the face of everything on the planet making it much more closer to a utopian planet straight out of a fiction novel.

# What Exactly Will The Researchers Do?
They will use the DNA from the fossils of the Woolly Mammoth and introduce it into the genome of an elephant embryo (since elephants are close relatives of Mammoths). This will result in a mammoth-elephant hybrid. 

That is not exactly bringing back the mammoth back to life but it is the next best thing. Eventually, the team hopes that they can achieve the same feat in an artificial womb so that there would be no need to conduct this procedure within a female elephant. 

The resultant being would more likely be an elephant with ‘selective’ features of that of the Woolly Mammoth. 

According to current predictions, scientists say that this will be possible by 2019. We are not currently there yet but as research continues in this field and with the pace of technology, we should be able to successfully bring back a dead species (at least in essence) in the next 2 years.

*Images taken from the public domain*