Colossal Biosciences has made elephant stem cells as part of plan to bring back the Woolly Mammoth.
If there were Woolly Mammoth like creatures living in the frozen areas of the world they would stomp and crush the Permafrost and make it harder to melt. This would slow any climate change effects by about 600 million tons of CO2 each year.
The elephant is resistant to cancer. It is hoped that having, controlling and using elephant stem cells could unlock secrets for improved cancer cures.
Harvard researcher George Church is cofounder of Colossal Biosciences. As of January 31, 2023, Colossal Biosciences has raised $225 million in funding and has over $1 billion in valuation.
They plan to bring back other species as well.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
I look forward to Mammoth Burgers!
I don’t know how long this will take, but if the Russia-Ukraine war is still going on, or there’s some sort of Korea-like pause where the war never officially ends, won’t sanctions on Russia prevent reintroducing anything that might help Russia (Siberia)?
Also, I too have doubts about the stomp-out-global-warming theory. And if I recall right, George Church wasn’t using that as justification until now.
You are darn right to have doubts about that theory, because it is total nonsense. The permafrost is thawing like crazy because of Arctic amplified warming and that isn’t stopped or even slowed by stomping the upper soil.
But having wooly mammoths back is very awesome anyway and it doesn’t require a sexy climatic justification.
There was also an attempt to create “Frankensheep”:
Montana traffickers illegally cloned Frankensheep hybrids for sport hunting:
“Conspirators used the genetic material of Marco Polo argali sheep from Kyrgyzstan to breed entirely new animals.”
See:
https://www.popsci.com/environment/sheep-hybrid-hunting/
You breed them. You feed them.
Does stomping permafrost really make it resistant to melting? In Canada we are always told that any disruption from building causes it to have localized melting and it turns into ponds and swamps every summer, swallowing whatever you tried to build there.
Not saying it’s wrong but you might want to verify the theory before wide scale release of mammoth.
I doubt they will help with global warming. Before and if we manage to make enough of them, that will take a lot of time, and by that time, there will be better solutions. Mammoths would be a big target for wild hunters.
But to have actual living mammoths would be cool.
Just curious, do they need a special authorization to bring back dead species ? I guess you can’t do everything you want as for stem cells and gene editing. Imagine some country deciding to bring back dinosaurs, could be dangerous.
We don’t bring back Mammoths because we want to save the permafrost or any other Gaia protection scheme… We bring back Mammoths because its freaking awesome.
Climb the mountain because it is there, [and you’re rich enough to pay Sherpas to string ladders across the fissures].
exactly.
I would like to nominate the saber tooth tiger for their second animal.
The passenger pidgin.
That one is 100% due to mankind and it was a key animal in the North American ecosystem.