It would be too controversial to implant a woolly mammoth embryo in an endangered Asian elephant surrogate.  Therefore, an artificial mammoth womb must be created.  So says Dr. George Church, the Harvard biologist on a mission to resurrect the mammoths.

Scientific American reports that “editing, birthing and then raising mammoth-like elephants is a huge undertaking. Church says that it would be unethical to implant gene-edited embryos into endangered elephants as part of an experiment. So his lab is looking into ways to build an artificial womb; so far, no such device has ever been shown to work.”

The creation of a mammoth-like uterus would be quite the scientific accomplishment since scientists have yet to master that with existing animals…