Hunting Mammoth DNA (broadcast Friday, September 28th, 2007)

25,000 year old fossil mammoth hair from the Indigirka River. Image courtesy of A. Sher, F. Shidlovskiy, Ice Age Museum, Moscow

A research team has managed to extract DNA from a strand of mammoth hair. The old hair, they say, is a better source of the ancient DNA than trying to extract it from old bone or muscle samples. What can the findings tell us about how mammoths lived -- and can the technique be used to learn more about other prehistoric animals?