Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 14 2021, @10:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the big-deal dept.

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

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 (£11m) 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.

[...] The project is framed as an effort to help conserve Asian elephants by equipping them with traits that allow them to thrive in vast stretches of the Arctic known as the mammoth steppe. But the scientists also believe introducing herds of elephant-mammoth hybrids to the Arctic tundra may help restore the degraded habitat and combat some of the impacts of the climate crisis. For example, by knocking down trees, the beasts might help to restore the former Arctic grasslands.

Pleistocene Park.

Also at NYT and CNBC.

Previously: Woolly Mammoth Genome Sequenced
Resurrection of the Woolly Mammoth Could Begin in Two Years
Analysis Supports Conservation of Existing Species Rather Than De-Extinction of Mammoths
Mammoth DNA Activates Briefly in Mouse Eggs


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 14 2021, @12:23PM (4 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 14 2021, @12:23PM (#1177671) Journal

    Mammoth steak? Maybe. I'll use the American bison as an example. I often ate beefalo burgers at the local burger joint when I was young. They raised their own hybrid buffalo in the fields behind the burger stand. They didn't serve steak, all the meat went into burger meat, and they were damned good burgers. Later in life, I got the opportunity to purchase real bison meat. Hmmm - IMO, it's just not as good as the beefalo, or as good as most beef. Bison is tougher, and the flavor just doesn't seem quite right.

    Mammoth may be the same. Extra gamy game meat may appeal to some people, but it doesn't appeal to the masses.

    FWIW, the best beef I've ever sunk my teeth into, is Angus and Brangus, with the Brangus being ever so slightly more tender. Nothing else compares, IMO.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday September 14 2021, @12:26PM (2 children)

    by looorg (578) on Tuesday September 14 2021, @12:26PM (#1177672)

    Mammoth burgers does sound even more tempting now. Bring back the Mammoths!

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Tuesday September 14 2021, @12:37PM (1 child)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday September 14 2021, @12:37PM (#1177675) Journal

      Spoiler alert. It will taste like elephant.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday September 14 2021, @03:43PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 14 2021, @03:43PM (#1177732) Journal

        If they get it right, it won't taste like elephant. But what it would taste like I couldn't guess. However, different diets yield different flavors, and mammoths didn't live in tropical jungles.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 14 2021, @01:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 14 2021, @01:40PM (#1177684)

    tastes like chicken?