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

Qualcomm’s New Chip Means You Don’t Need a Flagship Phone for Cutting-Edge AI Tools

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 offers top performance for Android phones just below the absolute top-tier.

Qualcomm revealed its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip in September to power the absolute top-tier Android phones coming out in 2026. The $900 OnePlus 15 launched this month and is the first phone available with the new chip in the US. Now, the company is offering a new chip — the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 — for handsets that need slightly less digital horsepower for lower cost, leading to cheaper but still powerful phones.

Qualcomm typically offers multiple versions of its chips at varying performance levels and prices to suit the needs of phone-makers. Even within the cream of the crop — phones that cost $700 or more — companies may opt for a less powerful and, presumably, a less expensive chip to power their lower-priced devices. This could include phones like the just-announced OnePlus 15R, which doesn’t have a price but follows other R-series handsets that have slightly less impressive specs and cost less than their premium siblings.

The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 has a complex lineage, but Qualcomm sees it as a follow-up to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, released in 2023 — which is why the company only released comparable figures to that 2023 chip. The major upgrade between the two is that the new 8 Gen 5 has the company’s proprietary Oryon central processing unit with 36% improved performance and 42% better power efficiency compared to the 8 Gen 3. Comparably, the new chip’s graphics processing unit has 11% greater performance and 28% better power efficiency than its predecessor’s GPU.

The Oryon CPU in the 8 Gen 5 enables the AI agent features, like contextual suggestions based on personal data, that debuted in last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite phone chip and have continued in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. The company introduced the «Elite» moniker to brand them as the new highest bar for performance. The 8 Gen 5’s CPU reaches speeds of 3.8GHz, while the 8 Elite Gen 5 reaches up to 4.6GHz, showing a clear gap in capability — but other than that, Qualcomm didn’t release performance figures for how the 8 Gen 5 compares to its even higher-end chip sibling.

Regardless, the 8 Gen 5 will power flagship phones from companies like OnePlus, Qualcomm said in a press release. The first devices using the chip will launch in the coming weeks, which likely includes the OnePlus 15R that the phone-maker confirmed will launch on Dec. 17. OnePlus’ R-series phones have been slightly less powerful than their flagship counterparts but have been priced lower as a result. For instance, the OnePlus 13R (powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) released back in January was less powerful than the OnePlus 13 but also $300 cheaper at launch.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, Nov. 26

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Nov. 26.

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 tough one for a change! Think transit — maybe the kinds some people might take to get home for Thanksgiving. 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: Greyhound, e.g.
Answer: BUS

4A clue: Passenger’s walkway on a 1- or 6-Across
Answer: AISLE

6A clue: The Wolverine to Chicago’s Union Station, e.g.
Answer: TRAIN

7A clue: Barely beat, with «out»
Answer: EDGED

8A clue: «___ out!» (ump’s cry)
Answer: YER

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Feathered creature, in kid-speak
Answer: BIRDY

2D clue: Electricity bill calculation
Answer: USAGE

3D clue: More like a fox
Answer: SLIER

4D clue: Past-tense verb that sounds like a number
Answer: ATE

5D clue: Redundant word before «result»
Answer: END

Technologies

iPhone Fold Will Be Creaseless and Cost $2,400, Report Says

Apple’s first foldable could be an expensive one.

The first foldable iPhone could be less than a year away, and reportedly, you won’t ever see a crease. You could, however, see a decent dent in your wallet.

According to a report by Chinese publication UDN, engineers have made «breakthroughs» in creating a «crease-free design» for the iPhone Fold, and the product cycle has now moved past the experimental stage to pre-mass production mode. The Fold reportedly could be launched in September 2026.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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But you’ll pay dearly for the iPhone‘s creaseless screen. Another report by Fubon Research says the iPhone Fold could cost as much as $2,399, which would make it the most expensive foldable phone on the market — higher than the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, the Samsung Galaxy Flip 7, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, Motorola Razr Ultra and Motorola Razr, all which range between $700 and $2,000.

More from CNET: A Word of Warning to Apple About the Fold

The reported $2,400 price tag might pack a wallop, but so could the Fold’s possibly game-changing design quality. The market has steadily grown since the first foldable phone was launched in 2018, but no one has yet been able to make one that doesn’t show a crease after several folds. The OnePlus Open has the least visible crease of all the foldables — there’s even a subreddit extolling the virtues of its near-creaseless-ness. But a crease is still a crease.

‘No crease is a hard feat!’

Jessica Naziri, a content creator focused on tech made for women at TechSesh.co, says, «2026 is the year of foldables.»

«We’ve been begging our phones to behave like laptops, and this gets us a lot closer to that reality,» Naziri told CNET. «If Apple is doing it, you know it will be good. Between the iPhone Air and the upcoming foldable, it’s nice to finally see Apple trying new form factors.

Despite the high price, Naziri says consumers will still pony up.

«Obviously, the engineering feat is expected to come with a premium price tag, and people will find a way to save up and pay up,» she said.

Creaseless comes at a cost

The UDN report said that teams from Apple, NewRixing and Amphenol have been collaborating on key component bearings to avoid the iPhone Fold showing creases. Those teams have used high-strength hinge component technology made of liquid metal to improve folding durability, according to the report.

The inner screen is developed by Samsung Display, and the panel structure, material handling and lamination are designed by Apple, the report said. UDN also said that Taiwan-based Hon Hai Technology Group has created a production line where several dozen iPhone Fold devices will be initially manufactured for testing before mass production begins.

The advanced components and design work led to the hefty consumer cost, however. Fubon Research analyst Arthur Liao said the OLED panel, hinge and lightweight internals will help drive up the price of the iPhone Fold. He also said that RAM prices have risen 75% in the past year, and total material cost could go up between 5% and 7% in 2026 because of increased demand for chips, memory and storage.