Climate change is threatening many species with extinction, so we owe it to them to try to help. Japanese scientists have now successfully cloned mice from freeze-dried adult cells, which can be stored easily for long periods of time. Importantly, the cloned mice were later able to have their own offspring.

Currently, facilities referred to as “frozen zoos” are used to store samples of animal sperm, eggs and other tissues at cryogenic temperatures, allowing us to potentially revive species or populations that are wiped out. The problem is, these facilities require huge amounts of energy to run, making them expensive and vulnerable to power outages or damage from the same environmental disasters that threaten the animals themselves.

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Freeze-drying could be an alternative, preserving samples in a form that’s more stable and doesn’t require such extreme temperatures. While storing sperm in this way has been achieved, it’s not always easy to obtain healthy sperm cells from some animals.

Read more: New Atlas