Quote Originally Posted by Ludens
I am sorry to dissappoint you guys, but they haven't found the code of the Mammoth genome, just that of its mitochondria. One of the odd things about our cells (and those of other animals and plants) is that there are tiny other "cells" inside them. These are mitochondria (plants also have so-called chloroplasts) and they look a lot like bacteria. They even have their own genome. A very small one, totally insufficient to survive outside of our cells, but a genome all the same. Their function is energy production: with the help of mitochondria, our cells are able to produce approx. ten times as much energy from a unit of glucose as they would be on their own. Chloroplasts use the same reaction, but the other way round: they use energy (sunlight) to produce glucose.

Since mitochondria don't mate and their genome has a very constant rate mutation, they are very useful for determining evolutionairy lineages. But for cloning purpose, they are AFAIK useless.
Their is another group working on the nuclear DNA as well. They say they can extract the entire genome from what they have in about a year. It is assembling it into a working chromosome that is the problem.

Theoretically, it should be possible to use an elephant to make a hybrid and work out the kinks, but it could take a very long time. They are hoping to extract some frozen sperm. The elephant is a close enough relative (descendant) that it should be viable. By doing the same thing over several generations you could get a descendant that is mostly mammoth.