{"id":331673,"date":"2025-08-09T22:57:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T22:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331673\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T22:57:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T22:57:21","slug":"the-woolly-mammoth-and-a-30ft-sea-cow-could-all-soon-be-back-from-the-dead-news-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331673\/","title":{"rendered":"The woolly mammoth and a 30ft sea cow could all soon be back from the dead | News Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"\"
\n\t\tThese guys taking ages to cross the road is a solid excuse why you were late to work (Picture: Getty\/PA)<\/p>\n

If all goes to plan, Ben Lamm\u2019s next Christmas<\/a> card to his friends will be of him posing with a woolly mammoth and a dodo.<\/p>\n

Lamm, 43, is the billionaire entrepreneur who founded Colossal Biosciences, a genetic engineering company, in 2021.<\/p>\n

What the company hopes to do is certainly colossal \u2013 working to resurrect extinct species, a process called\u00a0de-extinction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The idea, Lamm told Metro<\/strong>, came during a call about human-based biology with George Church,\u00a0a biologist at Harvard Medical School<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018By the way, I\u2019m working to bring back mammoths and other extinct species to reintroduce them back into the Arctic and regenerate the ecosystem. But I have to go now. Goodbye,\u2019 Lamm recalled of the call.<\/p>\n

\u2018I had just heard the greatest thing ever, and then the call was over. I stayed up all night reading articles and listening to interviews about all these things.\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\"The
\n\t\tRomulus and Remus (Picture: Colossal Biosciences)<\/p>\n

\t\t\"The
\n\t\tBen Lamm (left) said the idea of \u2018de-exctinction\u2019 came from a phone call (Picture: Colossal Biosciences)<\/p>\n

Scientists have long dreamed of reviving extinct species. But earlier this year, Colossal researchers helped bring the dire wolf, a giant, extinct species made famous by Game of Thrones, back from the dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kind of. Scientists salvaged DNA from the fossils of dire wolves and edited 20 of their genes into their\u00a0closest living relatives<\/a>, grey wolves. (Think Jurassic Park<\/a> just without the maniacal computer-network engineer.)<\/p>\n

After creating embryos and implanting them in surrogates, three pups were born: Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi.<\/p>\n

The pups, with their dense, pale coats, were the first successful case of de-extinction, Colossal said.<\/p>\n

\n

SOUND ON. You\u2019re hearing the first howl of a dire wolf in over 10,000 years. Meet Romulus and Remus\u2014the world\u2019s first de-extinct animals, born on October 1, 2024.The dire wolf has been extinct for over 10,000 years. These two wolves were brought back from extinction using\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/wY4rdOVFRH<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Colossal Biosciences\u00ae (@colossal) April 7, 2025<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, Colossal wants to revive the woolly mammoth <\/a>by giving elephants dense hair and thick fat, and reintroducing them to the Siberian tundra.<\/p>\n

Lamm said that his team are also \u2018exclusively focused\u2019 on two other extinct creatures: the Tasmanian tiger and the 12-foot-tall bird called Moa, though they haven\u2019t cracked how to insert edited genes into eggs yet.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019d personally love to bring back the Steller\u2019s sea cow,\u2019 Lamm said, referring to the extinct, 30-foot-long relative of the manatee, \u2018but there is nothing to gestate it in until we have artificial wombs working.\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\"\"
\n\t\tThe Stellar\u2019s sea cow was wiped out by humans (Picture: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\t\t\"The
\n\t\tDire wolves were about 20% larger than the average grey wolf (Picture: Colossal Biosciences)<\/p>\n

Inventing an undo button for extinction sounds like a sci-fi film, but Lamm\u2019s reasons for doing it are very much real.<\/p>\n

Many of the de-extinction candidates were eradicated by humans: The dodo was, well, as dead as a dodo by 1662<\/a> after people colonised Mauritius.<\/p>\n

The Tasmanian tiger was similarly wiped out after\u00a0European settlers relentlessly hunted the striped marsupials in the 1800s, while the sea cow was wiped out by humans<\/a> within 27 years of its discovery.<\/p>\n

Climate change threatens to make even more species vanish<\/a>, and wildlife populations have already plummeted by 70%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Habitats around the planet are changing at a pace that is faster than evolution by natural selection can keep up,\u2019 explained Lamm.<\/p>\n

\u2018For many species, there is not enough time.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n

We\u2019re launching the Colossal Species Reintroduction Fund: $250K annually to help return missing and at-risk species to the wild. Rewilding restores ecosystems and helps prevent extinctions. This is one more step toward making extinction a thing of the past. pic.twitter.com\/zpoqZZ1xmX<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Colossal Biosciences\u00ae (@colossal) August 5, 2025<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is de-exctinction, with the power of\u00a0pipettes and computers, possible? Experts told Metro <\/strong>they aren\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n

For one, the dire wolves Colossal brought back can be better described as modified grey wolves, said Benjamin Tapon<\/a>, a PhD student at Queen Mary\u2019s School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences.<\/p>\n

\u2018By any practical definition of a species, no animal that Colossal has genetically engineered so far is anywhere near the extinct animal they are trying to emulate,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Colossal is doing the equivalent of rebuilding the Library of Alexandria by printing PDFs of a few books and adding them to the shelves of the local public library.\u2019<\/p>\n

As much as dire wolves and grey wolves share 99.5% of their DNA code, Tapon said, people and bananas share 60% of genes<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\t\t\"The
\n\t\tThe Thylacine, also called the Tasmanian tiger, was driven to extinction by\u00a0colonisers (Picture: Colossal Biosciences)<\/p>\n

\t\t\"The
\n\t\tNo one is quite sure why the huge hairy cousins of the elephants are no longer around(Picture: Colossal Biosciences)<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s a bit like saying that Romeo and Juliet shares 99% of its words with 50 Shades of Grey, or a book in another language,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n

Alex de Mendoza, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary\u2019s Centre for Epigenetics, said Game of Thrones and Colossal got a big thing wrong about the dire wolf \u2013 they probably weren\u2019t white.<\/p>\n

The wolves lived in arid conditions, not the tundra, de Mendoza said, so they were probably a red-ish brown, adding: \u2018The habitat they once roamed on is no longer here.<\/p>\n

\u2018Most species extinctions these days occur due to habitat loss. If we couldn\u2019t preserve their habitat while they were still alive, why should we bring them back?\u2019<\/p>\n

Capon wonders whether developing the technology to resurrect long-dead creatures could make people less diligent at preventing extinction.<\/p>\n

\t\t\"The
\n\t\tThe moa was wiped out within a century of humans settling in New Zealand (Picture: Colossal Biosciences)<\/p>\n

\t\t\"Undated
\n\t\tThe dodo was a flightless, goose-like bird (Picture: Colossal Biosciences\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

\u2018If we bring them back, will they be zoo attractions?\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

As controversial as de-extinction is, both Capon and de Mendoza understand where Lamm is coming from.<\/p>\n

Capon would love a pet dodo, \u2018just not enough to try to bring them back.\u2019<\/p>\n

De Mendoza said he would de-extinct the Tasmanian tiger: \u2018It is so frustrating that this wonderful animal disappeared in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think there\u2019s still habitat for it to survive, as long as people don\u2019t kill it\u2026 That said, my hopes for seeing a Tasmanian tiger come back from extinction and not just a kangaroo with some stripes are rather low.\u2019<\/p>\n

Lamm understands where his critics are coming from, too. Which animals Colossal hopes to de-extinct take into account whether they\u2019d have a positive impact on the environment or help conservation efforts. <\/p>\n

\u2018If bringing back the species can also inspire\u00a0the next generation,\u2019 he added, \u2018then that is just another bonus.\u2019<\/p>\n

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk<\/a>.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\tComment now<\/p>\n

\t\t\tComments
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Arrow
\nMORE: I went inside the Navy\u2019s secret battlespace barely anyone knows about<\/a><\/p>\n

Arrow
\nMORE: I discovered the murky world of \u2018minor attracted people\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s even more disturbing than you think<\/a><\/p>\n

Arrow
\nMORE: Moment huge black bear is chased out of home by tiny Pomeranian dog<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tNews Updates<\/p>\n

Stay on top of the headlines with daily email updates.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t