[ExI] New Bioscience Company Raises $15 Million to Revive Woolly Mammoth

John Grigg possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com
Wed Sep 15 21:12:13 UTC 2021


"Boasting a whopping $15 million in funding, a newly formed bioscience
company hopes to bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction. Dubbed
'Colossal,' the organization is reportedly
<https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/13/firm-bring-back-woolly-mammoth-from-extinction>
spearheaded
by technology entrepreneur Ben Lamm and Harvard geneticist George Church.
The first stage of the ambitious project will be centered around producing
a hybrid creature, of sorts, comprised of Asian elephant DNA that has been
infused with woolly mammoth genes that are responsible for the animal's
iconic hairy coat and bodily characteristics that allow it to withstand
freezing temperatures. Ultimately, Church explained, "our goal is to make a
cold-resistant elephant, but it is going to look and behave like a mammoth."

The purpose of this endeavor goes beyond merely bringing a mammoth-like
creature into our modern world to demonstrate the awesome power of science
as the company foresees the hypothetical animal as a way of both helping to
stave off the extinction of Asian elephants, which are a threatened
species, and also preserve the climate of the Arctic tundra. Their
reasoning for the latter goal is that if that region of the world were once
again populated by the massive pachyderms, the animals would naturally
knock down trees and cause grasslands to emerge while also compacting the
permafrost beneath them.

Although Lamm and Church are optimistic about the project and hope to
produce the first calves of this proverbial 'woolly mammoth 2.0' within
about six years, experts are understandably skeptical about both the
feasibility of the endeavor as well as whether or not it would actually be
beneficial in fighting climate change. "The scale at which you’d have to do
this experiment is enormous.," explained evolutionary biologist Dr Victoria
Herridge, "you are talking about hundreds of thousands of mammoths which
each take 22 months to gestate and 30 years to grow to maturity." And,
should Colossal manage to pull that off, ecologists say, unleashing a
massive herd of the creatures into the Arctic tundra could wind up causing
more damage to the region rather than saving it."

My own idea is to have a fast food restaurant chain named, "Woolly's!" The
burgers would be comprised of vat grown woolly mammoth meat, and of course
the company mascot would be an adorable cartoon version of a baby woolly
mammoth. I would have a mechanical Disney style animatronic baby woolly
mammoth in every restaurant, that would be programmed to interact with
people. I just need some major start-up capital! Lol

https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/new-bioscience-company-raises-15-million-to-revive-woolly-mammoth/
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