Technologies

Woolly mammoths could again walk the Earth in just a few years

Colossal lands $15 million to restore the woolly mammoth to the Arctic. The CRIPSR startup 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: bring 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, but instead to bring their cold-adapted genetic traits, which include 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.

There are other ways Colossal hopes to help. Its gene editing technology could artificially add genetic diversity to species with only small surviving populations, Lamm said.

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 protecting 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

Tim Cook Riffs on Retirement Rumors, AI, Phone Addiction and Trump

The Apple CEO discussed a range of topics on Good Morning America.

Tim Cook isn’t going anywhere just yet — not during Apple’s 50th anniversary celebrations, not with the company preparing to introduce its first foldable phone, not while the tech giant is trying to figure out how to beat the AI race.

In a sit-down interview with Good Morning America host and Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Strahan this week, Cook, who turned 65 in November, said there was no truth to the rumors that he is considering retiring from Apple. He became CEO of the company in 2011, 13 years after joining from Compaq.

«I love what I do deeply. Twenty-eight years ago, I walked into Apple, and I’ve loved every day of it since,» Cook told Strahan. «We’ve had ups and downs, but the people I work with are so amazing. They bring out the best in me, and hopefully I can bring out the best in them.»

Strahan interviewed Cook during the Apple CEO’s visit to Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing & Visual Arts in Harlem, where students use Apple technology through the company’s partnership with the nonprofit Save the Music.

Speculation about Cook stepping down has been circulating since last November, when the Financial Times cited unnamed sources saying that Apple was preparing to usher in a new CEO «as soon as next year.» Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman threw water on that report, saying he «would be shocked if Cook steps down in the time frame outlined by the FT.»

During Cook’s tenure as CEO, Apple’s revenue has nearly quadrupled, with the tech giant adding dozens of new iPhone models, several more iPads, and updated Apple Watches and AirPods. This year, Apple has launched several new products, including the MacBook Neo, which at $599 has disrupted the budget laptop market. The company’s first foldable phone could come later this year.

Touch some grass

The GMA interview was short but wide-ranging, including Cook’s thoughts on how much people use their iPhones. Many studies estimate that people across most generations spend at least 4 hours a day on their phones, with millennials and Gen Z spending 5 to 6 hours.

When asked what he worries about most regarding Apple products’ impact on society, Cook weighed in, telling Strahan he doesn’t want people using iPhones «too much.»

«I don’t want people looking at the smartphone more than they’re looking in someone’s eyes,» Cook said, «because if they’re just scrolling endlessly, this is not the way you want to spend your day. Go out and spend it in nature.»

More on Apple from CNET:

AI and privacy

Cook told Strahan that AI «can be so positive,» but his response when asked whether he was «worried» about it was fairly flat.

«Technology doesn’t want to be good, and it doesn’t want to be bad,» Cook said. «It’s in the hands of the user and the hands of the inventor.»

Strahan questioned how much of iPhone users’ private lives are feeding Apple’s AI learning machine. Cook told him that because the smartphone is encrypted, Apple doesn’t have access to it. He went on to say: «When we can’t answer a question on your device, we send it to something called private cloud compute, which is essentially a big device in the sky that has the same kind of security and architecture as your phone.»

On its website, Apple says that it «does not use our users’ private personal data or user interactions when training our foundation models.»

To date, Apple has been cautious in diving into the AI scrum. While Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft are spending nearly $700 billion combined on AI tech this year, Apple is «only» investing $14 billion.

Trump and tariffs

Cook has been criticized for being too cozy with the Trump administration: donating $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inauguration; giving him a 24-karat gold plaque; and attending a White House screening of Melania, a film about the First Lady.

The Apple CEO told Strahan that he’s «not a political person» on either side.

«I’m kind of straight down the middle, and I focus on policy,» Cook said. «So, I’m very pleased that the president and the administration is accessible to talk about policy.»

One of those policies has been tariffs, which Trump has imposed on many nations to varying degrees during his second term in office, purportedly to pressure companies to shift their manufacturing to the US. The president has largely spared Apple, which promised to invest $600 billion over four years to make more products in the US.

Cook told Strahan that the glass for the front and back of an iPhone will come out of Kentucky by the end of the year, and that 100 million chip engines will be manufactured in Arizona this year. He also noted that 20 billion semiconductors will be made in the US. «We’re a very proud American company, and we want to do as much here as we can,» Cook said.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for March 19, #1012

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 19 #1012.

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 features another tricky purple category, where words hide inside the clues and you have to dig them out. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times 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: Children’s stories.

Green group hint: Lucky charms.

Blue group hint: One color, then the next.

Purple group hint: Hidden words relating to music.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Folk tale characters.

Green group: Good luck symbols.

Blue group: Things that change color.

Purple group: Ending in music genres.

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

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is folk tale characters. The four answers are Chicken Little, Frog Prince, Gingerbread Man and Goldilocks.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is good luck symbols. The four answers are evil eye, four-leaf clover, horseshoe and rabbit’s foot.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is things that change color. The four answers are chameleon, mood ring, sunset and traffic light.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ending in music genres. The four answers are baby blues, pet rock, scrap metal and soda pop.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for March 19, #542

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 542 for Thursday, March 19.

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 tricky. Remember that many athletes’ surnames look like common words, so if you’re having trouble sorting the answers, think about whether a particular word could be someone’s last name. 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: Football division.

Green group hint: They catch the pigskin.

Blue group hint: College hoopsters.

Purple group hint: Where’s the glass slipper?