There's no environment I can think of that would have remained constant enough to preserve dinosaur DNA.

Scientists have always thought that because mammoths roamed such a huge territory - from Western Europe to Central North America - that North American woolly mammoths were a sideshow of no particular significance to the evolution of the species.

Typically, there's a drive in science to do something just to say you've done it.

Theres no environment I can think of that would have remained constant enough to preserve dinosaur DNA.

The study of evolution is an evolution in itself.

Nuclear DNA encodes all the proteins and enzymes that make you you, basically.

I'm not sure the Russians would be happy that their iconic wooly mammoth has North American origins.

When I was a young boy, I used to gaze through the microscope of my father at the insects in amber that he kept in the house. And they were remarkably well preserved, morphologically just phenomenal.

It turns out that there are swaths of habitat in the north of Siberia and Yukon that actually could house a mammoth. Remember, this was a highly plastic animal that lived over tremendous climate variation.

Teeth actually turn out to be one of a couple of good sources of ancient DNA. The teeth, actually the enamel, is quite good at preserving the DNA, so it is a bit of time capsule so to speak.