In 2003, the clone of an extinct Spanish mountain goat called Celia was born. She only survived for a few minutes.

Celia was the first animal ever to be brought back from extinction - and to go extinct twice.

Some scientists want to continue resurrecting lost species.

While plans to bring back white rhinoceroses and woolly mammoths might be more realistic, a handful of researchers still hope to bring dinosaurs back from the grave.

This week, a study was published announcing the discovery of 35 amberFossilised resin - which is the viscous (thick, sticky) liquid inside a tree that protects it from external threats. Amber has been appreciated for its colour and natural beauty since Neolithic times. pieces in Myanmar. These were filled with perfectly preserved prehistoricUsed to refer to anything really ancient. History is thought to have begun around 3,000 years ago with the advent of writing. Anything that predates this time is measured not through text and human knowledge but by dating objects, bones, and other materials. insects around 100 million years old.

Amazingly, some of the bugs seem to have kept their original colour. One has a metallic-green shine, another a purple hue. As the Times points out: "The preservation of colour in the fossil record was long thought improbable, if not impossible."

According to Cai Chenyang of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, who led the study, the findings were also interesting because "the amber is mid-CretaceousPeriod in Earth's history between 145 and 65 million years ago. The end of this period marked the end of the dinosaurs when a mass extinction, likely caused by an asteroid impact, changed the wildlife of our planet. dating to the golden age of dinosaurs".

Such a finding echoes the plot of the film, Jurassic Park. There, dinosaurs are brought back to life after their blood is extracted from ancient mosquitos trapped in amber. Then DNADeoxyribonucleic acid is the material in an organism that carries genetic information. from this blood is combined with that of other species and hatched out of an egg.

But Dr Susie Maidment, a dinosaur researcher at the Natural History Museum, points out that "when amber preserves things, it tends to preserve the husk, not the soft tissues. So you don't get blood preserved inside mosquitos in amber".

This is especially true of DNA, which is essential in any cloning process. Currently, the oldest recorded specimen of DNA is around a million years old. Dinosaurs became extinct more than 65 million years ago.

But Helen Pilcher, author of Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-extinction, describes how, in 1980, one researcher found a fly trapped in amber that had "cells still intact after 40 million years".

This inspired other bold scientists to claim that "if one could recover a dinosaur blood cell from inside that mosquito, and then transplant it into an egg that had had its own DNA removed", it might be possible to "grow a dinosaur".

Not all scientists are relying on DNA samples to achieve the dream of resurrecting then terrible lizardsAncient Greek translation for the word "dinosaur"..

Jack Horner, an palaeontologistA scientist who studies fossils to learn about history. famous for finding proof that some dinosaurs cared for their young, believes that he could "make a dinosaur" within a decade by making evolution "run backwards".

This would be achieved by toying with the genetics of a dinosaur's descendent (say, the modern chicken) in an effort to bring out its inner dinosaur - be that a longer tail, or sharper teeth.

Yes. Every time a mosquito in amber is found, there will be a flicker of excitement. The past comes to life in the study of these amazing creatures. It's natural to fantasise about meeting them or imagining them in their original environments. Who knows what science will make possible in the future?

No. There are so many practical obstacles, not least the fact that no one has any idea how to find fully preserved DNA from so long ago. There are also ethical issues. As one character says in Jurassic Park: "Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should." Dinosaurs wouldn't have space in our world.