A team of scientists from Japan, Russia and the United States hopes to clone a mammoth, a symbol of Earth’s ice age that ended 12,000 years ago. The researchers say they hope to produce a baby mammoth within six years, according to Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun daily's report. The scientists say they will extract DNA from a mammoth carcass that has been preserved in a Russian laboratory and insert it into the egg cells of an African elephant in hopes of producing a mammoth embryo. "If a cloned embryo can be created, we need to discuss, before transplanting it into the womb, how to breed [the mammoth] and whether to display it to the public. After the mammoth is born, we'll examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors," Akira Iritani, a professor emeritus at Kyoto University in Japan, who leads the team, told Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun daily.