About 15,000 years ago, an old female wooly mammoth plunged through the ice as she was being chased by predators. Her remains have now been uncovered by scientists working in Siberia. And remarkably, as they were digging it out, blood began to stream out. Which is weird given that it was 10° below freezing.

It’s not known if the blood or tissue samples contain living cells required for cloning. And even if such cells are recovered, the DNA repair would require a very complex process that could take years. A report is expected later this July. …

“It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties,” noted Grigoriev. Mammoth blood, it would appear, contains a kind of anti-freeze. This is consistent with work done by Canadian geneticists who in 2010 showed that mammoth hemoglobin releases its oxygen much more readily at cold temperatures than that of modern elephants.