Texas Might Be Home to Woolly Mammoths Sooner Than You Think by Rachel Funnell
November 17, 2023
Introduction:
(IFL Science) Modern day Texas is home to deer, rattlesnakes, and bobcats, to name a few animals, and – according to news from a de-extinction company – soon, it might also have mammoths. The company behind the ambitious target is Colossal Biosciences, and it’s their goal to have living, breathing mammoths at their Texas-based facility by 2028.
“Colossal Biosciences is, to our knowledge at least, the world’s first de-extinction and species preservation company,” founder Ben Lamm told IFLScience during an interview about whether or not we can bring back dinosaurs. “What that means to us is looking at and understanding which genes are associated with the core phenotypes, or physical attributes, that existed in an extinct animal.”
“For example, for the woolly mammoth, it’s the dome cranium, the curved tusk, and whatever is making it cold-tolerant, as well as a lot of things under the hood. Things like how nerve endings respond to freezing temperatures, how the body produces haemoglobin, and the shaggy wool coat.”
Finding those genes means first looking at an extinct animal’s closest living relative, and in the case of the mammoth, that’s the Asian elephant, which is 99.6 percent the same, genetically speaking.
“What we’re asking is how can we at Colossal understand the core genes that made elephants cold tolerant,” Lamm continued. “Those genes are now extinct, so how do we de-extinct those genes and put them into the architecture, if you will, of an existing living animal?”
Resurrecting the mammoth: Elephant breakthrough gets us a step closer
By Michael Irving
March 12, 2024
https://newatlas.com/biology/mammoth-re ... osciences/
We’re a step closer to seeing a live woolly mammoth walking the Earth for the first time in 4,000 years. Colossal Biosciences, a company dedicated to the controversial-but-unquestionably-cool goal of resurrecting extinct species, has now announced a major breakthrough in creating elephant stem cells.
Apparently learning all the wrong lessons from Jurassic Park, Colossal Biosciences was formed in 2021 with the express goal of using genetic engineering to revive extinct animals. The woolly mammoth was the first target, but the company later expanded to bring back other iconic extinct species, the thylacine and the dodo.
But doing so is, well, a colossal undertaking. The scientists are comparing the genomes of mammoths and their closest living relatives, Asian elephants, which share 99.6% of their genes, and then tweaking the latter to be more like the former. That includes giving the offspring thicker hair, larger fat reserves, smaller ears and bigger tusks, all traits that help mammoths thrive in cold climates. This process means the resulting animal wouldn’t be a 'pure' mammoth but a hybrid.
