Scientists Hope Lab-Grown Embryos Can Save Rhino Species From Extinction

Rhino embryos created in a lab are raising hopes that high-tech assisted reproduction may help save the northern white rhino, the most endangered mammal in the world.

Only two of these rhinos are still alive, both females living in a sanctuary in Kenya and protected around the clock by armed guards.

The last male, a rhino named Sudan, died in March. But before the males died off, wildlife experts collected and froze sperm. Now, in the journal Nature Communications, scientists say they successfully have used this stored sperm to fertilize eggs taken from a closely related subspecies, the southern white rhinoceros.