By Ashley Strickland, CNN

ATLANTA — There are constant reminders in our everyday surroundings of the many chapters of life that have unfolded on Earth.

Rocks and dirt preserve evidence of the epochs that came before ours, such as the oldest known fossilized forest on the planet where unusual trees once grew 390 million years ago.

Fossils reveal the diversity of life that has flourished and disappeared over millennia, and graves tell the stories of humans who lived through unimaginable hardship centuries ago.

The one constant about life on Earth is that it changes continuously. Even scientists can't agree on whether or not a new chapter of Earth's history has begun.

While it may seem impossible to bring long-extinct creatures back to life, scientists are achieving breakthroughs that could enable a comeback, perhaps in the not-so-distant future.

Back to the future

An ambitious plan to genetically engineer a woolly mammoth — a giant that hasn't roamed Earth in 4,000 years — has taken another step toward reality.

Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas-based company aiming to create a mammoth hybrid that looks exactly like its extinct counterpart, has reprogrammed cells from an Asian elephant. The species is the closest living relative to the woolly mammoth.

The now-modified cells could eventually be used to help the hybrid mammoth grow a woolly coat and develop other traits needed to survive in the Arctic.

The company believes that resurrecting the woolly mammoth could possibly help restore the vulnerable Arctic tundra, which is at risk as the world warms.

Across the universe

The far-reaching infrared gaze of the James Webb Space Telescope has spied a mysterious galaxy that existed when the universe was only 700 million years old — in its adolescence, astronomically speaking.

The discovery surprised scientists, who found that it was the oldest "dead" galaxy ever observed, and it stopped forming stars almost as soon as star birth in the universe began.

Violent interactions between stars or black holes can deprive galaxies of the gas needed to form stars, but so far, no theories explain exactly what happened in this distant galaxy.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50945615/elephant-stem-cells-created-in-a-lab-for-the-first-time-could-help-bring-back-the-mammoth