WOOLLY MICE

President Donald Trump pauses his reciprocal tariffs for 90 days...except for China.  Stock market jumped up.  At last check, the Dow Jones Industrials were up 2400 points.

Of course, you've heard of the woolly mammoth.  From Wikipedia:

The appearance and behaviour of the woolly mammoth are among the best studied of any prehistoric animal because of the discovery of frozen carcasses in Siberia and North America, as well as skeletons, teeth, stomach contents, dung, and depiction from life in prehistoric cave paintings. It was roughly the same size as modern African elephants.

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  Woolly because it was present during the last ice age, and thus is covered with hair.
• Ate grasses and plants, an adult requiring 400 pounds/day.
• Reached the age of 60.
• Longest known tusk is 13.3 feet long, with heaviest of 287 pounds.  Female had smaller tusks.
• Co-existed with humans, with the last of its breed mostly expiring around 10,000 years ago.  Isolated populations survived the St. Paul Island until 5600 years ago and on Wrangel Island until 4000 years ago.
• Reason for extinction?  Probably humans.
• The mammoth genome project was 2015, sparking discussions about revival.

While attempts at genetically engineering mammoths have failed, one pathway is to start small, like a woolly mouse, ultimately evolving into the woolly mammoth.  Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas company, is working to de-extinct the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, northern white rhinoceros, dodo bird, and dire wolf (click on that, and read about three pups, Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi) for conservation biology.  Also on their longer term list are saber-tooth tigers, moas and mastodons.

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  Founded in 2021, it is the highest valued company based in Dallas, at $10.2 billion.

Colossal announced that the company's mission was to preserve endangered animals through gene-editing technology and use those same animals to reshape ecosystems to combat biodiversity loss.^[22]

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  One of the co-founders, George Church (with the beard), in 2008 announced that he wanted to sequence the woolly mammoth genome.  In 2012, he was part of a team that pioneered the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool, and in 2017 successfully added 45 genes to the genome of an Asian elephant.  The Wooly mammoth shares 99.6% of the same DNA with the Asian elephant.

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  The other co-founder is Benn Lamm, a serial entrepreneur.
• Team includes over 170 scientists and 95 advisors in fields such as genomics and paleantology.
• In 2023 the company stated that it wanted to produce woolly mammoth hybrid calves by 2028.

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  In January 2023, Colossal announced the formation of its Avian Genomics Group, which will be dedicated to reconstructing the DNA of the dodo bird, which went extinct in the 1600s.^[46] Led by Beth Shapiro, who serves as Chief Science Officer to Colossal,^[34] this research group aims to create a hybrid composed of specific traits most commonly associated with the dodo and plans to reintroduce these hybrids into their respective environments. Colossal will be working with primordial germ cells to pair dodo DNA with the genome of the Nicobar pigeon, the extinct dodo's closest living relative, and develop chimeric chicks as surrogates for future dodo restoration.^{[2][7][27][47]}
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  Breaking, developed at the same time as Colossal, a plastic degradation and synthetic biology startup, was launched in April 2024. The company discovered X-32, a microbe that is capable of breaking down various plastics in as little as 22 months while leaving behind carbon dioxide, water and biomass.^[48]

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  In March 2025, Colossal announced the creation of gene-edited "woolly mice" with mutations inspired by woolly mammoths, touting it as a step toward engineering mammoth-like Asian elephants. The mice, which exhibit long, shaggy, tawny-toned fur, were developed using a mix of mammoth-like and known mouse hair-growth mutations. Some experts expressed skepticism, arguing that the experiment was more about mouse genetics than a breakthrough in de-extinction. The company stated that it planned further studies on the mice's cold tolerance and long-term health but had no commercial breeding plans.^[54][55]
• There are critics:

The company's aim of de-extinction has been criticised by some scientists and conservationists, who consider it to be a "fantasy" due to the poor and fragmentary preservation of ancient DNA^[84][85] and argue that the money could be better spent on conserving extant ecosystems and wildlife.^[86] Ancient DNA professor Jeremy Austin has suggested that Colossal's efforts are "more about media attention for the scientists and less about doing serious science.”^[85]

So about the woolly mice, Colossal Science implanted genetically modified embryos into female lab mice that gave birth to the first woolly pups in October of 2024.  Said a skeptic, Vincent Lynch, a professor of biology at the University of Buffalo, the woolly mouse is pretty adorable.  Next, Colossal will edit the genes in the embryos of Asian elephants, implanting the  into female elephants so that they can give birth to calves with traits that made the mammoths distinctive.  They will be placed in Pleistocene Park, located in Siberia.

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