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

Pennies With Purpose: Smart and Simple Ways to Use the Disappearing Coin

The classic one-cent coin is being retired, but it still has purpose.

The penny — that lowly, grimy, circular piece of copper and zinc — is getting the last laugh. It’s been less than a month since the last one was minted on Nov. 12, and there are growing penny shortages all over the US. Stores are actually paying people to bring them in, and businesses fear they could lose millions of dollars.

What’s that old saying? You don’t miss something until it’s gone? Maybe the penny was more important than we thought. But that old one-cent coin had been fighting a losing battle for respect for years. You can’t buy anything with them anymore, not even a gumball. Most of us just toss them into a junk drawer or a glass jar. A sad penny can even lie on a sidewalk all day and not get scooped up.

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The US Mint printed the last pennies on Nov. 12, ending a 230-year run. According to the Mint, the cost of making the coin was 3.69 cents for every one-cent penny — hardly a smart return on investment for taxpayers.

However, with the discontinuation of penny production, some brick-and-mortar businesses across the country have been unable to give back exact change because they lack sufficient pennies, if any at all.

A Retail Industry Leaders Association survey revealed that thousands of stores have no pennies, and they are calling on the federal government to take action.

Grocery chain Price Chopper and Market 32 recently held a Double Exchange Day, where people brought in their pennies and received double the value back in the form of a shopping voucher. Similarly, grocery chain Giant Eagle offered gift cards worth twice the amount of pennies customers brought in during a one-day event on Nov. 1.

Millions at stake

CBS News asked several large companies how they would handle cash transactions if there were shortages of pennies at the counter. McDonald’s said the company’s restaurants would round up or down to the nearest nickel, meaning an order costing $12.43 would round up to $12.45, but an order costing $12.42 would round down to $12.40.

Wendy’s, Kwik Trip, and GoTo Foods — parent company of Auntie Anne’s, Cinnabon, Jamba and Carvel — all said they would round down to the nearest nickel in favor of the customer. Kroger will encourage customers to use exact change, but still accepts pennies as payment.

Rounding down is beneficial for consumers, but the National Association of Convenience Stores estimates that thousands of stores across the US could collectively lose more than $1 million a day by rounding down. The NACS wants US lawmakers to create a law that would allow businesses to round transactions up to the nearest nickel.

Until the federal government establishes guidelines or regulations on how to address the disappearing penny, things will remain chaotic for a while.

Others have ditched the penny

Mark Stiving, CEO of pricing strategy company Impact Pricing, said the discontinuation of the penny will have «almost zero impact» on consumers and businesses in the long run. And he’s got the receipts from New Zealand to prove it.

«What I think is about to happen is that companies will still put prices out in ‘9’s (like $49.99),» Stiving told CNET. According to Striving, New Zealand used the rounding method after demonetizing and phasing out its penny. «You’d still price something at $9.99, but you just rounded it to the nearest nickel. So whenever a transaction happened, it was always the nearest nickel.»

Be penny-wise and take action

You’re not going to find a fortune by foraging all the pennies in your home, unless you have an exceptionally rare one lying around. But if you dig around your bedroom, garage, kitchen and even your car, you might collect a few bucks worth. That’s not nothing. Would you let a five-dollar bill collect dust in a drawer? Of course not.

Find a Coinstar kiosk. You’ve likely walked by one of the company’s 17,000 machines without even noticing it, but this is a pretty handy way to convert those pennies and other coins into cash. The process is simple: Locate a kiosk (typically found inside a grocery store) and deposit your coins to receive a cash voucher, which you can redeem at checkout or at customer service. There is a service fee of nearly 13%, so if you redeem $100 worth of coins, you’ll get $87.

Wrap the coins and find a bank: Many banks and credit unions will accept your coins. They might have a coin-counting machine, or they may ask you to organize the coins into wrappers, which is time-consuming but also will give you an idea of just how many coins you’ve been stashing. There may or may not be a fee, depending on whether you’re an account holder. (Note: Some banks will not accept prewrapped coins; they must be counted out or machine-checked to ensure they are legitimate.) Yes, people do hide same-weight slugs inside coin rolls.)

Just spend them: Gone are the days when you could ride your horse down to the general store and buy something with a penny, but there are still a few holdouts. Dollar General offers a weekly Penny List featuring out-of-season or discontinued items that have been marked down to just one cent. Websites such as The Krazy Koupon Lady and The Freebie Guy provide weekly updates on what you can get for a penny at Dollar General — if those items haven’t already been removed from the shelves. Krazy Koupon Lady even has a Home Depot hack where you can get items for a penny.

Find a collector’s item: It’s highly unlikely, but you never know. The most valuable penny is a 1943-D Lincoln Wheat Cent Penny, which could fetch nearly $2.5 million. Or perhaps you have an 1880 Indian Head Cent, which could net you around $150. USA Coin Book’s list of valuable pennies is here.

Fun and skills for kids: Those pennies could help you level up your arts and crafts toolbox. Help kids learn about budgeting, create some art, do a science experiment — you’ve got options! Check out Greenlight’s ideas.

Is the nickel next to go?

The penny is just the latest US coin to be discontinued. The half-cent, the half-dime, the large cent, the double eagle and several others have all come and gone.

The nickel could be next. It costs nearly 14 cents to make, almost three times the face value of the five-cent coin. The primary problem is that nickels are comprised of 75% copper and 25% nickel, metals which have doubled in price over the past decade.

But it will be tougher to eliminate the nickel than the penny. Rounding up or down to the nearest dime could cost US taxpayers $56 million per year, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. That is significantly more than the estimated $6 million rounding hit per year caused by the penny’s retirement.

A penny for your trivia

The penny may be vanishing, but its history is full of fun facts.

President Lincoln was not always on the penny. Honest Abe only became the star attraction in 1909, in honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth. Lady Liberty was the first to appear on the penny, back in 1793.

Newer pennies have little copper: Pennies minted after 1982 are made of copper-plated zinc, which consists of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper.

You can clean them: Vinegar, vegetable oil and water can help wash away decades of soot and grime off those pennies. But «don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t» even think about it if you want to hunt for any collectables in your penny stash — it could significantly damage their worth, says one coin shop owner.

Only Lincoln faces right: Our 13th president is the only person depicted on coins who is facing to the right. Everyone else faces left. Pull out some change and check for yourself.

50-50 coin toss? Try 80-20: Stanford math professor and former magician Persi Diaconis says that a penny will land tails up 80% of the time because the side with Lincoln’s head weighs significantly more than the tails side.

What D, S and P mean: Lettering on the front of the penny indicates where it was minted: D for Denver, S for San Francisco and P for Philadelphia. But you’ll only see P on pennies minted in 2017, which was done to celebrate the US Mint’s 225th anniversary. In all other years, pennies minted in Philly didn’t have the P.

Five special pennies: The final five pennies ever minted feature a special omega symbol, chosen because omega is the final letter in the Greek alphabet. You’re unlikely to ever see one in real life. Those five pennies will not enter circulation, according to the Treasury Department. Instead, the government plans to auction them off. Details about the auction aren’t yet available.