For those not aware. There's a running joke in the skepticism community, that in the next few years we're gonna have baby mammoths flying around in jetpacks [1]. That's because stories of both mammoth cloning and jetpacks in development keep coming back on the media. Every other year we hear about a new exciting research about either of these, but not only they never delivered, we also haven't seen any real evidence that we have the technology for either of them to become a reality in the near future.

Both jetpacks and baby mammoth share a common problem. They're both things we have already theorized as possible. So we do know we can do it, any research on them could be legit. But there are way too many little technical details in the way to actually make them happen. In the case of cloning mammoths, there are just thousands of little things that could go wrong. From your DNA sample not being as good as you thought, or the womb condition of the elephant not being as appropriate for a mammoth as you thought. To the big elephant in the room (sorry) that is, even if you perfect the technique (we didn't), and happen to successfully give birth to a new baby from mammoth DNA. That new baby is actually not a mammoth. But a mammoth-elephant hybrid. That would be like mating a German Shepard with a Poodle, getting a short dog with curly hair, but with a hair color that resembles the Shepard. And saying "here's a German Shepard". Well, not really. If you really want an actual mammoth that is, at least, very close to a mammoth with little elephant DNA in it. You'll need to reclone that new baby with more mammoth DNA. Even if you assume perfect cloning technique and infinite samples of perfect mammoth DNA. Considering the pregnancy time for elephants. It could take centuries to have an actual mammoth.

So yea, it's exciting research, we love to see it, and it's sure something viable that may become true in the future. But don't get too excited just yet. The correct skeptic stance would be to assume they might succeed, but their chances are very slim to at best, move forward some baby steps in technology. But since that's probably not the best stance to get your research funded, we'll keep hearing about exciting new breakthroughs in baby mammoths flying on jetpacks on the media every other year.

[1] http://www.skepticalrobot.com/products/Jetpack-Mammoth-Tee.h...