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

iPhone 16E vs. Pixel 9A: I Tested the Cameras and Was Surprised by the Results

Here’s how Apple and Google’s most affordable phones compare against each other in terms of photography.

Most phones these days take decent photos for posting to Instagram or sharing with friends and family on a message thread. But the best cameras are found on smartphones that typically cost $1,000 or more. Fortunately, Google has proved with the Pixel 9A that you can still take good-looking snaps and pay less than $500. Images from the phone look terrific and capture a lot of detail and texture. And Google’s algorithm secret sauce for capturing beautiful and natural complexions in portraits is on full display here.

But something curious happened this year. Apple replaced its cheapest phone with the iPhone 16E. In doing so, it tried to pull some of the affordable photographic attention away from the Pixel. The iPhone 16E takes lovely photos, even with one fewer camera than the Pixel. Apple is well-known for pushing the limits of phone photography with the iPhone, but that is usually tied to its iPhone Pro line, which starts at a grand. And while $599 is the lowest price that Apple sells a new phone for, the iPhone 16E misses that $500 sweet spot of the Pixel 9A.

So that raises the question: Does a pricier phone take better photos?

To find out, I took the iPhone 16E and Pixel 9A around San Francisco and put them through a camera test. Several hundred photos later, I was surprised by the results, but I ended up with one being my favorite.

iPhone 16E and Pixel 9A camera specs

Camera	Resolution	Apeture	Notes
Pixel 9A wide	48MP	f/1.7	OIS
Pixel 9A ultrawide	13MP	f/2.2	Takes 12MP photos
Pixel 9A selfie	13MP	f/2.2	Fixed focus
iPhone 16E wide	48MP	f/1.6	OIS
iPhone 16E selfie	12MP	f/1.9	Autofocus

Right off the bat, this isn’t exactly a level playing field. The Pixel 9A has three cameras: a wide, ultrawide and selfie. The iPhone 16E only has two: a wide and selfie. Each phone’s main camera has a 48-megapixel sensor and groups four pixels together to create a «super» pixel that captures more light. That also means photos exhibit less image noise and therefore need less noise reduction, which can otherwise leave your pictures looking like a blurry, soft mess.

Both phones lack a dedicated telephoto camera and use sensor cropping to achieve a 2x magnification that in my testing looks pretty good.

The Pixel 9A has a «macro mode» and can focus on subjects that are close up. Interestingly, it doesn’t use its ultrawide camera for macro shots like many other phones do. Sadly, the iPhone 16E lacks a macro mode unlike the rest of its iPhone 16 brothers and sisters. However, I noticed that the main camera can take close up shots with the subject in-focus (maybe not as dramatically close as a dedicated macro mode allows for).

iPhone 16E vs. Pixel 9A: Photos

Take a look at some of my favorite photos from both phones.

iPhone 16E vs. Pixel 9A: Photo comparisons

In general, I found that the Pixel 9A really pushes the dynamic range in its images. The phone captures more details in the shadows but really aggressively brightens them too, like in the photos below of Maisie the cat. The iPhone 16E’s image of Maisie doesn’t have as much detail and texture in her fur. Somewhere in between the Pixel’s photo and the iPhone’s image is how the cat actually looked in real life.

I also find that the Pixel takes images with a cooler color temperature, while the iPhone’s photos have more contrast, especially outdoors. Take a look at the photos below of a brick building here in the Mission in San Francisco. Notice the bricks in each photo.

In terms of Portrait mode, neither the Pixel nor iPhone have a dedicated telephoto lens. And remember, the iPhone 16E has only a single rear camera, so it relies solely on AI and machine learning to determine the depth of a scene and create that artistic out-of-focus background.

The first thing I notice with the portrait mode photos below of CNET’s Faith Chihil is how differently the iPhone and Pixel handled the textures in the yellow sweater and green chair. The «cutout» (from in focus to out of focus) looks natural, except for the green chair in the iPhone’s photo. And Faith’s complexion looks most true to life in the Pixel 9A image. The iPhone 16E’s photo makes her skin look muddy and muted.

Something else I noticed is that the iPhone 16E’s portrait mode only works on humans; on the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro, animals are automatically recognized as portrait subjects. So, if you want dramatic-looking snaps with artistically blurred backgrounds of Fido or Mr. Cupcakes, then the Pixel is the way to go. Sorry for yet another cat photo, but check out the portrait mode snap below of Maise the cat.

Both phones take night mode images (Google calls them Night Sight photos). In the photos below of a space shuttle Lego set taken in a very dim room, neither of the images are great. The iPhone 16E’s photo has the least image noise, but the contrast is heavy. I prefer the Pixel 9A’s photo.

I also snapped images of a residential block at dusk where the street lights really make the iPhone’s night mode photo look orange. The iPhone’s image is brighter. But notice the details in the telephone wires across the top of the images below. The iPhone captures them as continuous lines, whereas the Pixel 9A’s image has them made up of tiny jagged line segments.

iPhone 16E vs. Pixel 9A: Which would I choose?

Overall, both phones have their shortcomings when it comes to photography. I don’t think most people would choose an affordable phone solely based on the camera’s performance. Be assured that if you get either phone, you’ll be able to take decent snaps with some images bordering on looking great.

The iPhone 16E costs more, lacks an ultrawide lens and, while the pictures it takes are decent, I think that the Pixel 9A’s cameras are great for a $500 phone, and would likely opt for it.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Monday, April 28

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for April 28.

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.

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword isn’t too tough. I knew the 1990 Madonna hit (5-Across), but had no idea on the very next question involving tennis (6-Across). You win some, you lose some. Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. 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 at those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Chef’s creation
Answer: DISH

5A clue: Iconic Madonna hit of 1990
Answer: VOGUE

6A clue: Section of a tennis court used when playing doubles
Answer: ALLEY

7A clue: State of mind
Answer: MOOD

8A clue: Not amateur
Answer: PRO

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Rarely-used word meaning «sadness»
Answer: DOLOR

2D clue: Snow place like home?
Answer: IGLOO

3D clue: Went after in court
Answer: SUED

4D clue: «Yo»
Answer: HEY

5D clue: Fill time on stage
Answer: VAMP

How to play more Mini Crosswords

The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 28, #217

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 217, for April 28.

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.

Connections: Sports Edition must be incredibly difficult to assemble. I’ve noticed numerous categories where the puzzle maker falls back in picking a certain athlete, and then listing that person’s past teams, often including college and national or Olympic teams. Hint: There’s one like that today. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta after making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday on Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it 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: I want this one.

Green group hint: Win a medal here.

Blue group hint: Hoopster’s history.

Purple group hint: It’s also a hat.