Wired reports on an effort to recreate the genomes of extinct animals.

Last year, scien­tists working with physical DNA specimens published the sequence of a big chunk of a genetic code extracted from a frozen woolly mammoth bone. Another team recovered 40,000-year-old DNA fragments from cave bears. Other groups have gone after the DNA of extinct plants, insects, and even dinosaurs.

Though significant obstacles remain, even the Jurassic Park scenario is now seen as at least possible:

Hendrik Poinar of Canada’s McMaster University and his father, George, an expert on amber-preserved biological samples, were consultants to Steven Spielberg on Jurassic Park. “People kept asking us, ‘Is this ever going to happen?’ and we would say, ‘No, it’s never going to happen,'” Poinar recalls. “But the picture is somewhat different now.”

Ultimately, we could end up in Blade Runner territory: according to one scientist, “within the next couple of centuries humans should be able to make any creature they want.”