A Texas company working to bring back the woolly mammoth has made an adorable breakthrough: the woolly mouse.
Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences announced Tuesday that it has engineered mice with mammoth-like traits for living in cold climates. These mice, named Chip and Dale, have wavy, golden coats and could be plumper than the typical mouse.
“The Colossal Woolly Mouse marks a watershed moment in our de-extinction mission,” Ben Lamm, CEO of Colossal Biosciences, said in a news release. “We’ve proven our ability to recreate complex genetic combinations that took nature millions of years to create. This success brings us a step closer to our goal of bringing back the woolly mammoth.”
The company is working to resurrect core genes that made the woolly mammoth unique. It’d also like to make them resilient to disease and adaptable to today’s climate.
The woolly mouse wasn’t ever a species. But creating it shows it’s possible to analyze dozens of ancient woolly, Columbian and steppe mammoth genomes and then create observable traits in modern animals, according to the company’s news release.
Scientists at Colossal Biosciences compared the mammoth genomes to those of Asian and African elephants. They found mammoth genes that differed from Asian elephant genes (woolly mammoths and Asian elephants share 99.6 percent of their DNA) and could impact hair and other cold-adaptation traits.
So they modified seven genes in mice, and the resulting animals showed the predicted traits – woolly hair texture, wavy coats, golden hair color and curled whiskers. The scientists are still evaluating the results from altering genes associated with lipid metabolism and fatty acid absorption, but early indications show weight gain.
See here for the most recent Colossal Biosciences update. For no particular reason, I’m going to observe that I recently read Douglas Preston’s latest thriller, called Extinction, set at an ultra-high end Colorado resort that features various de-extincted mammals, including mammoths. Things go sideways, as they tend to do in thrillers, but this one made me more uncomfortable than usual, for reasons that will become apparent as you read. There’s a definite homage to Jurassic Park in there, except that as both the book and real life make clear, this science is basically on the verge of happening, right now. Anyway, if you’d like a night of no sleep as you race to finish reading, you might like Extinction. And you will definitely think about Colossal Biosciences as you read it. Speaking of, their statement is here, and TechCrunch has more.
Ian Malcolm: Yeah, uh, don’t you see the danger, John, uh, inherent in what you’re doing here? Genetic power’s the most awesome force this planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid who’s found his dad’s gun.
Donald Gennaro: It’s hardly appropriate to start hurling accusations–
Ian Malcolm: If I may, if I may. Uh, I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re, that you’re using here. It didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You know, you read what others had done, and you, and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility… for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses, uh, to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew it, you had, you’ve patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunch box, and now (bangs the table) you’re selling it, you wanna sell it, well.
John Hammond: I don’t think you’re giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody has ever done before.
Ian Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied over whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
John Hammond: Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction.
Ian Malcolm: No, —
John Hammond: No, no! If I was to create a flock of condors on this island, you wouldn’t have anything to say.
Ian Malcolm: No, no, listen, this isn’t some species that was obliterated by deforestation or, uh, the building of a dam. Dinosaurs, uh, had their shot, and nature selected them for extinction.
John Hammond: I simply don’t understand this kind of Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist! I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery and not act?
Ian Malcolm: Oh, what’s so great about discovery? It’s a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.
Ellie Sattler: Well, the question is, how can you know anything about an extinct ecosystem? And therefore, how could you ever assume that you can control it? You have plants in this building that are poisonous. You picked them because they look good. But these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they’re in and they will defend themselves. Violently, if necessary.
John Hammond: Dr. Grant, if there’s one person here, who can appreciate what I’m trying to do…
Alan Grant: The world has just changed so radically, and we’re all running to catch up. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions but look; dinosaurs and man, two species separated by sixty-five million years of evolution, have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea, what to expect?
John Hammond: I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! You’re meant to come down here and defend me against these characters, and the only one I’ve got on my side is the blood-sucking lawyer!