Technologies

CRISPR startup wants to resurrect the woolly mammoth by 2027

Colossal has landed $15m in funding to restore the woolly mammoth to the Arctic — and it thinks it can birth calves in four to six years.

You’ve heard of startups building computer chips, delivery drones and social networks. One called Colossal has a very different goal: bringing the woolly mammoth back from extinction by 2027 using CRISPR, a revolutionary gene editing technology.

The plan isn’t to re-create true woolly mammoths exactly but rather to bring their cold-adapted genetic traits like small ears and more body fat to their elephant cousins, creating a hybrid that can wander the tundra where mammoths haven’t been seen for 10,000 years. Colossal’s co-founders are Chief Executive Ben Lamm, who started five companies before this, and George Church, a Harvard Medical School professor with deep CRISPR expertise.

«Our true North Star is a successful restoration of the woolly mammoth, but also its successful rewilding into interbreeding herds in the Arctic,» Lamm said. «We’re now focusing on having our first calves in the next four to six years.»

It’s an interesting illustration of an imperative sweeping the tech world: Don’t just make money, help the planet too. Tesla’s mission is to electrify transport to get rid of fossil fuels that hurt Earth. Bolt Threads wants to replace leather with a fungal fiber-based equivalent that’s easier on the environment than animal agriculture. Colossal hopes its work will draw attention to biodiversity problems and ultimately help fix them.

Colossal has raised $15 million so far, led by investment firm Tulco. The startup’s 19 employees work at its Dallas headquarters and in offices in Boston and Austin, Texas, and it’s using its funds to hire more.

Artificial wombs and other technology spinoffs

Church said he expects spinoffs from the company’s biotechnology and genetics work.

«The pipeline of large scale genome engineering techniques can be applied to many other applications beyond de-extinction, and therefore [are] most promising for commercialization,» he said.

One technology ripe for commercialization is multiplex genome engineering, a technique Church helped develop that speeds genetic editing by making multiple changes to DNA at once.

Colossal also hopes to develop artificial wombs to grow its mammoth embryos. Just growing 10 woolly mammoths with surrogate elephant mothers isn’t enough to get to the large-scale herds the company envisions.

At the foundation of Colossal’s work is CRISPR. This technology, adapted from a method bacteria evolved to identify attacking viruses and chop up their DNA, is now a mainstay of genetic engineering, and Church has been involved since CRISPR’s earliest days.

Jurassic Park-style tourism? Nope

Selling or licensing spinoff technology is a somewhat indirect way of running a business. A more direct option is selling tickets to tourists. After all, humans already pay lots of money to see charismatic megafauna like lions, elephants and giraffes on African safaris. Seeing a creature that’s been gone for 10,000 years could add to the excitement.

But that’s not Colossal’s game plan. «Our focus is on species preservation and protection of biodiversity right now, not in putting them in zoos,» Lamm said. By re-creating woolly mammoths, Colossal can preserve the genetic legacy of Asian elephants that now are endangered.

Another candidate species Colossal wants to re-create is the woolly rhinoceros, a relative to the critically endangered Sumatran rhino.

Although Colossal doesn’t plan to build a tourist destination, it does have a woolly mammoth rewilding site in mind that sounds awfully close to Jurassic Park: Pleistocene Park. This area of about 60 square miles in northern Russia, named after the geologic period that ended with the last ice age, is where researchers Sergey and Nikita Zimov are trying to test their theories about the ecological and climatic effects of rewilding.

One Zimov idea is that woolly mammoths will trample snow and knock down trees. That, in turn, will restore grasslands that reflect more of the sun’s warming rays and eliminate insulating snow and forests so the ground cools more. And that means the ground will stay frozen instead of releasing its current store of carbon dioxide and methane greenhouse gases. About 260 billion to 300 billion metric tons of carbon could be released from thawing permafrost by 2300, scientists calculate, exacerbating the weather extremes and other problems caused by climate change.

Is species de-extinction a good idea?

There’s an appeal to the idea of de-extinction. Humans have dramatically altered the planet, and the United Nations estimates we threaten 1 million species with extinction as a result.

Colossal hopes its work will raise more attention to the biodiversity collapse. And it also plans to create detailed genetic descriptions of many endangered species «so we have the recipe if that species does go extinct,» Lamm said.

But is that really the best use of our resources to help the planet? No, some researchers believe.

Resurrecting species could have some benefits, but money would be better spent on trying to protect ones that are still around, a group of biologists argued in one paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. «Potential sacrifices in conservation of extant species should be a crucial consideration in deciding whether to invest in de-extinction or focus our efforts on extant species,» the researchers wrote.

But this isn’t government money Colossal is talking about, and Lamm argues that his startup’s work complements other conservation efforts. And, he argues, startups can move faster than government-funded work.

In a world dominated by climate crisis headlines, a startup that makes money with an ecosystem-improvement focus has special appeal. One investor, Zack Lynch of Jazz Venture Partners, is excited by software, hardware and biotech he expects Colossal will create.

At the same time, «these breakthroughs will help address issues such as land degradation, animal pollinator loss and other negative biodiversity trends,» Lynch said. Given how big our environmental problems are, you can see why an investor might be interested.

Technologies

The Final Supermoon of 2025 Is This Week. When to See the Cold Moon

The full moon will be earning its name as temperatures across the US are expected to be lower than average.

Your last chance to see a supermoon in 2025 is approaching quickly. The full moon is scheduled to appear this week on Thursday, Dec. 4. And even if you don’t make plans to go out and see it, you’ll probably spot it anyway — it’ll be the brightest thing in the night sky.

December’s Cold Moon is the third of four consecutive supermoons and the last one of 2025. Supermoons tend to come in packs of four thanks to how the moon orbits the Earth. The orbit is elliptical, meaning the moon is closer during some months and farther away in others. When it’s close to Earth, it’s referred to as perigee, and full moons during perigee are considered supermoons.

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Since it is closer, the moon will be slightly bigger and brighter in the night sky. According to NASA, a supermoon is 14% larger and 33% brighter than a micro moon, which occurs during full moons when the moon is at its farthest point from Earth, a phenomenon known as apogee. Thus, it is the best time to view a full moon outside of special events like blood moons or lunar eclipses.

When is December’s full moon?

The Farmer’s Almanac reports that December’s full moon will take place on the evening of Dec. 4. It’ll reach peak illumination at 6:14 p.m. ET. Thanks to the recent daylight saving time change, it should be dark enough to see for most of the US, but if it isn’t, it’ll remain full all night. Those who can’t see it due to the weather can see a moon that is more than 90% full from Dec. 2-6.

You won’t need any special equipment to see the moon, as it’ll be the brightest thing in the night sky by a wide margin. Those who want to see more detail can certainly use a telescope or binoculars if they choose, which will make the moon’s various craters and textures easier to see.

December’s full moon is often referred to as the Cold Moon, as it typically occurs when the weather starts to become quite chilly. The moon is earning its name this time around, as a polar vortex is scheduled to hit the US during Thanksgiving and will stick around for a while afterward. The polar vortex will drive down temperatures across a lot of the US this week, so if you do go outside, make sure to bundle up.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Dec. 1 #638

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Dec. 1, No. 638.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one if, like me, you’re a fan of a certain winter sport. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: On the ice.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: He shoots, he scores!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

HOSE, LOSE, GOAL, RINK, BRING, SCORE, CORE, BOARD

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

GOALS, ZAMBONI, SKATES, PUCK, STICKS, SCOREBOARD

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is HOCKEYRINK. To find it, start with the H that’s the farthest-left letter on the top row, and wind down and across.

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Dec. 1, #904

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Dec. 1, #904.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is a tricky one. You’d better know the works of a legendary author to nail the blue group, and the purple group is one of those tough ones that hides the relevant connections within four of the answers. If you need help sorting them into groups, you’re in the right place. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Spin around.

Green group hint: Not square or triangular.

Blue group hint: Novelist Franz.

Purple group hint: Think of the alphabet.