A rhino with a future

Hope for a species on the brink

- JEFFREY KLUGER

THE TWO LONELIEST RHINOS IN THE WORLD are the female known as Najin and her daughter, known as Fatu. They live in the Ol Pejeta wildlife conservancy in Kenya and are the world's last remaining northern white rhinos. But Najin and Fatu may soon have company.

As the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin announced on Jan. 24, a team of researchers led by Bio-Rescue, an international consortium of scientists and conservationists, has for the first time succeeded in transplanting a rhinoceros embryo fertilized in the lab into the womb of an adult female. If the methods the researchers used bear out, the northern white rhino could have a second chance at life.