Skip to main content

A South Korean scientist wants to clone an extinct 12,000-year-old cave lion

south korea to clone extinct siberian cave lions lion 3
Vera Salnitskaya
After paleontologists uncovered the permafrosted bodies of two ancient cave lions in Russia last summer, a team of scientists in South Korea has now taken to the task of attempting to clone the now-extinct animal. Led by South Korean cloning expert Hwang Woo-Suk, the team hopes to use samples of skin and muscle tissue gathered from one of the cubs to complete the ambitious experiment. Surprisingly, this won’t be Woo-Suk’s first rodeo with attempting to clone an extinct species, as he’s also currently working towards resurrecting a wooly mammoth. Haven’t any of these people watched the movie, Jurassic Park?

When the cubs were discovered last year, paleontologists surmised the lions were roughly 12,000 years old and died after living for just one or two weeks. Dr. Albert Protopopov, Yakutian Academy of Sciences’ head of mammoth fauna studies and one of the scientists to help with the initial finding, says his organization plans to keep the preserved cubs “for the future.” The academy allowed Woo-Suk and his team to retrieve the small samples though they originally asked for a large piece of the skull or one of the cubs’ entire legs. According to Protopopov, this created a bit of controversy between the two parties.

cave-lion-south-korea-1
Galina Mozolevskaya/YSIA
Galina Mozolevskaya/YSIA

“The dispute arose from the fact the researchers, as always, want to be completely sure and take more tissue, and I can understand them,” Protopopov tells the Siberian Times. “But the lion is not fully preserved and there are not so many tissues. We have planned other studies, so it is important to preserve the original morphology of the remains. Such disputes are normal in all studies, and in the end we came to a compromise.”

Despite the tiff, Woo-Suk and his group managed to collect enough tissue samples they hope will allow them to successfully clone the cub, but acknowledged more advanced technology may be needed. In addition to Protopopov’s intent to run other studies on the specimen, the fact each cub is so small — and highly degradable — forced the Yakutian Academy to greatly restrict the samples allowed.

“Comparing with modern lion cubs, we think that these two were very small, maybe a week or two old,” Protopopov said. “The eyes were not quite open, they have baby teeth and not all appeared.”

cave-lion-south-korea-2
Yakutsk.ru, Galina Mozolevskaya/YSIA
Yakutsk.ru, Galina Mozolevskaya/YSIA

Found roughly 650 miles northeast of Yakutsk in the Sakha Republic, the lions were initially spotted after a brief rise in temperature last summer. The higher than usual heat allowed for cracks in some of the area’s permafrost which allowed a local worker to spot the cubs hidden inside. After analyzing the area, Protopopov believes the cubs were placed inside the cave by their mother for protection before a landslide covered the cave and sealed the pups inside. This specific breed of cave lion is known to have lived during the middle and late-Pleistocene era in the far east area of Russia.

In addition to Woo-Suk’s attempt at cloning the creature, further studies hope to uncover why exactly the species ultimately became extinct roughly 10,000 years ago despite their lack of predators. Autopsies of the cave lions are reportedly scheduled to occur later this year.

Editors' Recommendations

Rick Stella
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Rick became enamored with technology the moment his parents got him an original NES for Christmas in 1991. And as they say…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more