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Maia Lappano Writes Letter To 'Sientists' Asking Them To Bring Back Woolly Mammoths

Maia Lappano insisted on writing to a group of scientists working on bringing mammoths back.

Jon-Erik Lappano said when his daughter Maia realized she would never see a real-life woolly mammoth, she was close to tears.

The Guelph, Ont. dad said he and four-year-old Maia had a talk about the ice age, climate change, and evolution, which led her to ask, "So I'll never see one? Not ever?"

He told Maia there were a group of scientists working on bringing mammoths back, and she insisted on writing to them.

So Maia asked 'The Sientists' to please find a woolly mammoth egg and put it inside an elephant.

Maia Lappano's letter to McMaster University scientists, complete with stickers. (Photo: Jon-Erik Lappano/McMaster University)

Lappano sent the note to Henrik Poinar, the head of ancient DNA investigations at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.

Poinar is part of a team that mapped out the woolly mammoth genome last year.

Lappano said the scientists wrote back to Maia, sending her a piece of mammoth tusk and passes to the Ontario Science Centre.

Maia Lappano holds her letter from McMaster University. (Photo: McMaster University)

McMaster posted Maia's letter on the university's website and on the Ancient DNA Centre website.

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Renegade Pictures/Smithsonian Channel
Dr. Tori Herridge, a paleobiologist at the Natural History Museum in London, with mammoth tusks.
Renegade Pictures/Smithsonian Channel
Dr. George Church, a molecular geneticist at Harvard, with a GGI reconstruction of a woolly mammoth.
Renegade Pictures/Smithsonian Channel
Dr. Roy Weber, a biologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, holding mammoth blood during autopsy.
Renegade Pictures/Smithsonian Channel
Mammoth carcass during autopsy.
Renegade Pictures/Smithsonian Channel
Insung Hwang, a cloning researcher at the SOOAM Biotech Research Center, with mammoth during autopsy.
Renegade Pictures/Smithsonian Channel
Mammoth teeth, shown during excavation of carcass in Siberia.

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