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Hoping to revive mammoths, scientists create 'woolly mice'
NPR ^ | March 04, 2025 | Rob Stein

Posted on 03/04/2025 7:22:32 AM PST by Red Badger

A woolly mouse, a breed created by scientists using genetic engineering. The development is a first step toward reviving a version of the extinct woolly mammoth.

Colossal Biosciences

Scientists have genetically engineered mice with some key characteristics of an extinct animal that was far larger — the woolly mammoth.

This "woolly mouse" marks an important step toward achieving the researchers' ultimate goal — bringing a woolly mammoth-like creature back from extinction, they say.

"For us, it's an incredibly big deal," says Beth Shapiro, chief science officer at Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas company trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth and other extinct species.

The company announced the creation of the woolly mice Tuesday in a news release and posted a scientific paper online detailing the achievement. Scientists implanted genetically modified embryos in female lab mice that gave birth to the first of the woolly pups in October.

"This is really validation that what we have in mind for our longer-term de-extinction project is really going to work," Shapiro told NPR in an interview. The company says reviving extinct species like the mammoth, the dodo and others could help repair ecosystems. Critics, however, question whether de-extinction would be safe for the animals or environment.

Shapiro and her colleagues started by trying to identify the genes responsible for making mammoths distinctive. They compared ancient samples of genetic material from mammoths with genetic sequences of African and Asian elephants, the mammoth's closest living relative.

These included long, woolly hair and a way of metabolizing fat that helped the animals survive well in the cold.

"And then we look in the mouse for those same genes and instances where those genes have been involved with making a woolly coat, or longer hair, or changing the color of the hair," Shapiro says.

One of Colossal's wooly mice compared to an ordinary lab mouse.

Colossal Bioscience

The researchers used the latest genetic engineering techniques to make a combination of modifications based on what they found in the mammoth genomes and in mouse DNA in the hopes the changes would produce the desired attributes in the offspring. And the experiment appears to have worked.

"We ended up with some absolutely adorable mice that have longer, woolly, golden-colored coats," Shapiro says.

The mice also have fat similar to the mammoth, Colossal says, enabling them to survive in cold weather.

"This is exciting to us because it confirms that the genes and gene families that we identified using our comparative genomics approach really do cause an animal to have a woolly coat and a golden coat and longer hairs," Shapiro says. "And this is the way that we're going to create mammoths for the future."

They hope to do that by editing the genes in the embryos of Asian elephants and implanting the modified embryos into female elephants so that they can give birth to calves with the key traits that made the mammoths distinctive.

Other researchers say the woolly mice are exciting.

"I'm pretty skeptical about this, but that mouse is pretty adorable," says Vincent Lynch, a professor of biology at the University at Buffalo. "And for people like me who want to understand the genetic basis of traits, this is particularly impressive."

But Lynch and others caution: A mouse is not an elephant. So who knows if they could do the same thing with that species?

And even if they could, Lynch is among those who don't think bringing back the mammoth is a great idea. The money would be better spent saving species on the brink of extinction, critics say.

"The focus on de-extinction or genome-modified organisms as a conservation tool I believe is a distraction from the work that needs to be done" to conserve species, says Gabriela Mastromonaco, senior director of wildlife science at the Toronto Zoo. "There's species disappearing every day."

In addition, who knows what unintended consequences could result from introducing herds of mammoth-like elephants into the Arctic?

"They sort of want to mess around on a pretty large scale," says Karl Flessa, a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona "I don't know what the downside of having a bunch of hairy Asian elephants stomping around in the tundra might be. I don't know what would happen. They don't know what would happen. They can't really assure me that, 'Oh, everything will be just fine. Everything will be just like it was back in the Pleistocene.' I'm not ready to play God like that."

For their part, Shapiro and her colleagues defend their project. They say reintroducing mammoth-like creatures could benefit the environment by helping repair ecosystems where the mammoth once lived.

"Our intention is to re-create these extinct species that played really important roles in ecosystems that are missing because they've become extinct," Shapiro says.

In addition, the technologies the company is developing could be used to try to protect living species, says Ben Lamm, Colossal's co-founder and CEO.

"Current conservation models work. They just don't work at the speed at which we are changing the planet and eradicating species," Lamm says. "So we need new tools and technologies so we can engineer life in a better way that's more adaptable to be co-existent with humans."

Colossal hopes to produce mammoth-like Asian elephant embryos by next year and their first calves by 2028.

The company is also working on bringing back the dodo bird and the Tasmanian tiger.


TOPICS: History; Outdoors; Pets/Animals; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: crybabies; cryptobiology; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; mammoth; mammoths; mastodon; mastodons; woollybully; woollymice
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To: Red Badger

Those have already escaped the lab.

I saw a dark brown woolly mouse in my house.


21 posted on 03/04/2025 7:39:51 AM PST by DannyTN
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To: Dutch Boy

Add the wooly coat and you’d really have something.


22 posted on 03/04/2025 7:41:20 AM PST by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: No name given

“You bred raptors”?


23 posted on 03/04/2025 7:42:16 AM PST by BipolarBob (My goal is to lose 10 pounds this year. So far, only thirteen more to go.)
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To: HartleyMBaldwin

LOL


24 posted on 03/04/2025 7:43:01 AM PST by dp0622 (Tried a coup, a fake tax story, tramp slander, Russia nonsense, impeachment and a virus. They lost.)
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To: Red Badger

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy
Was he


25 posted on 03/04/2025 7:43:14 AM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives)
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To: Red Badger
I thought the wooly mammoth would be revived by transplanting an intact cell nucleus from a frozen wooly mammoth into the ovum of an Indian elephant (their closest living relative). The egg would then be implanted in an Indian elephant. The result would be a genetic clone of a wooly mammoth that died thousands of years ago.

But what's being described is, as the article says, an effort to create "mammoth-like" creatures that would have a number of genetic traits from the actual wooly mammoths, but would not be the same creatures genetically. Still very cool but kind of a letdown.
26 posted on 03/04/2025 7:43:49 AM PST by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: Bob434

Dodos probably were against foreign rats from invading their island and destroying their habitat. So at least dodos are better than most of our politicians


27 posted on 03/04/2025 7:44:32 AM PST by escapefromboston (Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.)
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To: escapefromboston

apparently they are working on that too...


28 posted on 03/04/2025 7:57:00 AM PST by Republican Wildcat
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To: Red Badger
Why does the world need hairy elephants? Why would you waste talent and treasure to invent something nobody wants or needs?

If they really must play with genetics, why don't they make chickens that lay three eggs a day or cows that grow twice as much sirloin steak meat?

Unless fake mammoth meat is really tasty...

29 posted on 03/04/2025 7:58:03 AM PST by ZOOKER
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To: tumblindice

Wooly Bully!..................


30 posted on 03/04/2025 7:58:10 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

31 posted on 03/04/2025 8:00:59 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: escapefromboston

Yeah I shouldnta dissed dodo,birds like I did- my bad


32 posted on 03/04/2025 8:01:50 AM PST by Bob434 (...Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana)
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To: Red Badger

What would be the purpose? To busy trying to find out how, not willing to consider if they really should.


33 posted on 03/04/2025 8:02:23 AM PST by exnavy (See article IV section 4 of our constitution.)
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To: Red Badger
I want a mini-giraffe.


34 posted on 03/04/2025 8:04:02 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: escapefromboston

Thats a good idea, certainly better than dinking around with the genome of already threatened creatures like that genius above suggests.

Dodos would have a short life cycle and after produced a million or so could be bred quite quickly to look for genetically created diseases we may have accidentally created or other research like getting an idea of the real effect these creatures would have on different environments before being released anywhere.

And who knows? They might actually taste good or at least palatably different as many fowl do. If you had a million (magic number) and they dressed at 10lbs (because that makes the math easy) and you sold them for $10/lb (chickens dont but this would be trendy at first) then you would have quite reserve for propelling future work.

If we screw something up and some do get away we should be able to retrieve them easily, they arent likely to destroy much, and we dont lose another species if we wind up at square one.

What kind of PR nightmare are they going to create for this type of work if the first couple have temperaments like african elephants and yank the limbs of of a couple of researchers at feeding time? I dont think that losing researchers or difficulty in the news cycle is such a big risk with dodos. Its might actually be the opposite because Gen Z knows that dodos are wacky survivalist types with a humorous form of martial arts and who wouldnt want to fund that?


35 posted on 03/04/2025 8:16:08 AM PST by gnarledmaw (If you dont like my sense of humor, please let me know so I can laugh at you too.)
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To: Bob434

We can’t even manage bison and wolves.

This just smacks of science masturbation.


36 posted on 03/04/2025 8:26:21 AM PST by larrytown (A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do. Then they graduate...)
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To: Dutch Boy

It’s a Mousetodon!


37 posted on 03/04/2025 8:28:19 AM PST by protest1
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To: Red Badger
This is more like selective breeding. It is not actually bring a mammoth back to life at all.

"bringing a woolly mammoth-LIKE creature back from extinction"

This would be a new breed so nothing is "back from extinction"

38 posted on 03/04/2025 8:32:56 AM PST by protest1
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To: Red Badger

A mammouse?


39 posted on 03/04/2025 8:42:15 AM PST by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: sevlex

40 posted on 03/04/2025 8:43:15 AM PST by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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