Firm raises $15m to bring back woolly mammoth from extinction

[left-of-center2012]

Ten thousand years after woolly mammoths vanished from the face of the Earth, scientists are embarking on an ambitious project to bring the beasts back to the Arctic tundra. The prospect of recreating mammoths and returning them to the wild has been discussed – seriously at times – for more than a decade, but on Monday researchers announced fresh funding they believe could make their dream a reality.

The boost comes in the form of $15m raised by the bioscience and genetics company Colossal, co-founded by Ben Lamm, a tech and software entrepreneur, and George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School who has pioneered new approaches to gene editing.

The scientists have set their initial sights on creating an elephant-mammoth hybrid by making embryos in the laboratory that carry mammoth DNA. The starting point for the project involves taking skin cells from Asian elephants, which are threatened with extinction, and reprogramming them into more versatile stem cells that carry mammoth DNA.

The particular genes that are responsible for mammoth hair, insulating fat layers and other cold climate adaptions are identified by comparing mammoth genomes extracted from animals recovered from the permafrost with those from the related Asian elephants. These embryos would then be carried to term in a surrogate mother or potentially in an artificial womb. If all goes to plan – and the hurdles are far from trivial – the researchers hope to have their first set of calves in six years ... mammoths each take 22 months to gestate and 30 years to grow to maturity. Whether Asian elephants would want to breed with the hybrids is, for now, unknown.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/13/firm-bring-back-woolly-mammoth-from-extinction

[Backseat Driver]

1. Just because we can doesn't mean we should. n/t

[Vogon_Glory]

2. I see no reason to have a wooly-minded panic attack

worrying about cloned Mammoths.

[XanaDUer2]

3. With climate change,

is this really fair to the animals?

[left-of-center2012]

4. In the linked article ...

They plan to release large herds on these animals on the frozen artic to bring it back from extinction (paraphrasing)

[XanaDUer2]

8. Well, if it accomplishes that

than hooray. But I'm so worried about current species going extinct

[dameatball]

5. The sad thing is that if this is successful, sooner or later someone will want to shoot one.

[padah513]

12. I hadn't even thought about that

But you're right.

[ffr]

6. That should remove some poaching pressure off of Rinos and elephants.

Good luck trying to keep those alive. Every idiot with a gun and pirate access to the Asian underworld will be trying to sell the ivory for its psuedoscience boner enhancing properties.

Maybe they can set aside $10M of the $15M for fencing and security watch for the animals.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. Cool

[Joinfortmill]

9. Why

[left-of-center2012]

11. Guess you didn't read the linked article

DU doesn't allow much to be copied and posted here.
Your question can be answered in the link.

[temporary311]

10. Wonder how they intend to ensure

enough genetic diversity in the mammoths so they don't end up with the elephant equivalent of the Habsburg jaw in a few generations.

[SoCalNative]

13. Um.....

I think that we have all seen how this movie ends........

[PortTack]

14. Oh so what could go wrong?? EVERYTHING

Totally unfair to the animals

[Javaman]

15. perhaps these idiots should work on the polar bear instead.

that species is almost gone.

useless bullshit by idiots chasing stupidity.

[Lulu KC]

16. Yes, and perhaps the ice that the polar bear needs

This truly makes me nuts. Wooly mammoth. Having that, "What planet am I on?" feeling.

[Moebym]

17. I'm deeply uncomfortable with this. n/t