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

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, Nov. 22

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Nov. 22.

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

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s a long one, since it’s Saturday, and some of them were tough today. (Two Bee clues?) Read on for the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Moves (over) in one’s seat
Answer: SCOOTS

7A clue: Capital of Taiwan
Answer: TAIPEI

8A clue: ___ Bee
Answer: SPELLING

10A clue: In the style of
Answer: ALA

11A clue: Device with a keypad that’s typed on discreetly, for short
Answer: ATM

12A clue: ___ Bee
Answer: SAMANTHA

15A clue: «Family Guy» baby
Answer: STEWIE

16A clue: Sings in the Alps
Answer: YODELS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Like some clams and freshly cleaned shirts
Answer: STEAMED

2D clue: What an online meeting invite gets added to, for short
Answer: CAL

3D clue: Vinegar’s counterpart
Answer: OIL

4D clue: Morphine and codeine, for two
Answer: OPIATES

5D clue: First inning in extra innings
Answer: TENTH

6D clue: Greek «S»
Answer: SIGMA

8D clue: Full of back talk
Answer: SASSY

9D clue: «Allegory of the Cave» philosopher
Answer: PLATO

13D clue: Wonderstruck feeling
Answer: AWE

14D clue: Nothin’
Answer: NIL

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Nov. 22, #425

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Nov. 22, No. 425.

Looking for the most recent regular 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 and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a diverse one today. As a Seattle resident, I got a kick out of the purple category. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

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

Yellow group hint: Gridiron numbers.

Green group hint: The Garden State.

Blue group hint: Guarding against scores.

Purple group hint: DC, or the Evergreen State.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Football defensive stats.

Green group: Teams that play in New Jersey

Blue group: US soccer goalkeepers.

Purple group: Washington ____.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is football defensive stats. The four answers are hurry, interception, sack and tackle.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams that play in New Jersey. The four answers are Devils, Giants, Gotham and Red Bulls.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is US soccer goalkeepers. The four answers are Howard, Naeher, Scurry and Solo.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Washington ____. The four answers are Capitals, Huskies, Nationals and Spirit.

Technologies

The iPhone 17 Pro’s Cameras Take the Fight to the OnePlus 15, and There Are Bruises

Camera showdown: The OnePlus 15’s camera should have surprised me, but it really didn’t. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro keeps on delivering in terms of photography.

The OnePlus 15 impressed my excellent colleague, David Lumb, with its superb battery life and excellent performance, especially for gaming. I wasn’t as thrilled with the cameras in my early testing, but the proof of its photography prowess comes down to how it stacks up against the competition. In this case, the iPhone 17 Pro is one of our favorite phone cameras and indeed one of the best camera phones you can buy in 2025.

For years, OnePlus has partnered with the iconic Swedish camera maker Hasselblad to work on color science and image calibration for OnePlus phones. But that partnership has ended, which puts a lot of pressure on the Chinese company to impress with its camera suite on the OnePlus 15. Throughout all these changes, Apple released the iPhone 17 Pro, which has a brand-new 48-megapixel 4x telephoto camera and carries forward the company’s reputation for excellent photography.

I headed out to the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland, to test both phone cameras in a variety of situations. It’s important to note, though, that what I consider «better» might not be what you agree with. Photography, like all art, is subjective. While, as aprofessional photographer, I prefer more natural, true-to-life tones, you may prefer imagery with more pop and colors. Take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

Note, too, that all images were taken with each phone’s standard camera mode in JPEG format, and all images have been resized using Adobe Lightroom, with no additional edits or sharpening applied. Small print done with, let’s dive in.

Straight off the bat, I’ll admit a small mistake in the photos above. I took this shot using one of the iPhone’s Photographic Styles. I think it was Gold, and so it’s no surprise that it’s given the image a more vibrant, warmer look that suits the scene incredibly well. I only had the style active for this example and the ultrawide version below.

However, I noticed that the iPhone’s exposure is broadly better, while the OnePlus’ software processing had worked so hard in reducing image noise that a lot of the texture in the floor had been lost.

Switch to the ultrawide lenses, and things do change a bit. The iPhone’s exposure above looks preferable to my eye, but the OnePlus’ shot definitely has more detail overall.

This example above is quite classic of the problems I have not just with the OnePlus 15, but also with most of OnePlus’ phones. The image is quite heavily saturated, with an electric-blue sky and vivid greens that look unnatural to me. The iPhone’s image has a much better handle on color here.

My other problem with OnePlus’ phones is how hard they go with their HDR processing, brightening up shadows and pulling back highlights, resulting in images that quite often lack depth and believable contrast. The image above is a prime example where the deep shadows under this bridge have been maintained in the iPhone’s shot, but where the OnePlus 15 has tried to lighten them so much that the image looks very overprocessed.

And to prove it’s not a one-off, this example above is a real low point for the OnePlus. It really tried to eliminate any kind of shadows in this scene, while pulling back the highlights in the sky outside far too much. The image looks fake, overprocessed and exactly what people would think of if you told them a photo was taken on a phone. By taking a far more subtle approach, the iPhone’s image is much more to my liking.

The OnePlus hasn’t gone as hard with its vendetta against shadows in the image above, but it does look like it’s ramped that saturation way up. It’s not that I don’t like vibrant colors — I do — it’s just that I want to add in that saturation should I want to, rather than having it forced on me by default.

The images above show a more muted scene and a good effort from both phones. Although taken just nine seconds apart (I checked the metadata), I do think the sun may have slightly peeked out from behind a cloud a little more in the iPhone’s shot, as the front of the building does look quite a lot brighter. Or maybe the OnePlus is going hard on the HDR again. Who knows? Either way, good details on this image from both phones.

The same scene in ultrawide does arguably look a little muted from the iPhone, at least when compared with the bold blue of the OnePlus’ shot above. Somewhere between the two would be my sweet spot. After I zoomed in on the details, the iPhone’s shot is certainly clearer, but at full screen — or on your Insta feed — that difference is negligible.

That brightness and color difference persists when taking each phone to its maximum default telephoto zoom, so maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the sun and clouds after all. Colors aside, the iPhone’s shot above is also clearer, and its details look sharp without being overly digitally sharpened. The OnePlus’ image does have something of a «crunchiness» to it from its software processing that I don’t like as much.

Peeping close up at the pixels on each phone’s telephoto zoom shot, I definitely think the OnePlus has gone too hard with its sharpening in the image above of a person in a window.

I’m slightly more torn on this nighttime scene. The OnePlus shot above has yet again gone big on the saturation. Look at the overcooked green on the grass — it looks like it was taken at midday in the spring. The iPhone’s colors look way more natural. However, the OnePlus’ sharpening works in favor at night, delivering a shot with crisper details throughout.

And in ultrawide, I flat out prefer the OnePlus image above. Those vibrant tones look much better here, especially as they make the oranges of the building in the background stand out more.

And if we peep at those pixels again, it’s clear that the details on the OnePlus’ shot (left) are far better. Finally, a win for the OnePlus.

This final indoor low-light scene is a bit more of a mixed bag. The OnePlus’ image above is unquestionably brighter — especially the people nearest the camera — but its noise reduction has gone a bit too hard in some areas, reducing textures on clothing and hair that the iPhone hasn’t done. Overall, though, I’d say this example is a close fight.

iPhone 17 Pro vs. OnePlus 15: Which camera is better?

For me, it’s an easy victory for the iPhone 17 Pro. Almost across the board, its images are more natural looking with realistic colors, saturation levels and exposure. The OnePlus 15’s reliance on heavy-handed image processing has resulted in often garish-looking photos that are almost the opposite of what I look for in my photography. However, as I said at the beginning, that’s just my opinion.

As a photographer, I want my camera — any camera — to be able to capture the best-looking image straight out of the camera that I can then apply more edits to if I want to. But maybe you don’t want to do that and instead want a vibrant, punchy-looking shot that you can immediately share to social media. If so, maybe the OnePlus will be fine for you.

At the end of the day, deciding which phone to buy will come down to more than just the camera, so make sure to read CNET’s in-depth reviews of all of 2025’s best phones to decide which is the one for you.