Genetic scientists are hoping to create a mammoth

The remains of Viki, a million-year-old fossilised mammoth skeleton, at the Viminacium museum near Kostolac, Serbia. Viki was found in a coal pit supplying a thermal plant, near the remains of a Roman archaeological site, alongside the scattered remnants of six other animals. — dpa

The dream that one day, towering mammoths might stomp through Siberia again is not new.

Mammoths have been extinct for thousands of years, but scientists in the United States say the vision could become reality sooner than many dared to hope.