LAS VEGAS --  A nonprofit group has snipped some cuttings to clone what is believed to be the world's oldest tree, a bristlecone pine they say has grown for 4,767 years on a rugged, wind-swept mountain in eastern California.
    "It is, in fact, the world's oldest-known living tree," said U.S. Forest Service official Larry Payne.  "It has lived at least a millennium longer than any other known tree."
    With the urgency of organ transplant doctors and the guidance of a Forest Service ranger, representatives from Michigan-based Champion Tree Project International hiked to the tree last week, at an elevation of 10,400 feet in the White Mountains on the California-Nevada border.
    "It's healthy," David Milarch said of the tree.  Milarch and his son are the founders of the Champion Tree Project.
    The tree was dubbed Methuselah after scientist Edmund Schulman found it and age-dated it by a core sample in the 1950s.  Although the tree is biblical, the tree is believed to predate Christ by almost 3,000 years.
    "It's gnarly from almost 5,000 years of harsh weather." Milarch said.  "But they got plenty of good material.

The tree is in a portion of the Inyo National Forest east of Bishop.
    Chris Friel, a doctoral student in plant physiology at University of California Davis who is trying to clone the specimens, said, "From the right kind of plant cell you can clone a whole plant.  Friel has begun introducing cells from the plant to a sterile growth medium in a petri dish.
    "Within a year, either I'll have an itty bitty little tree or I won't," Friel said.