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An American start-up made up of geneticists has raised $15 million for a project as ambitious as it is unusual: bringing mammoths back to life. If successful, the experiment could make it possible to fight against global warming and the extinction of animal species.
Of the mammoths, only the imposing skeletons remain today, in the prehistoric galleries of museums. In a few years, it may be possible to see them walking again in nature. This is the project of American scientists, who want to resurrect the mammoths. Ben Lamm runs the biogenetics company Colossal, which has just embarked on the project. “The mammoth we are working on will be about the size of an African elephant. I think that 20 years is the reasonable horizon to hope to see prehistoric wildlife in the Arctic”confides the latter.
To recreate the giants of prehistory, Colossal intends to use genetics and frozen mammoth DNA, and supplement it with elephant DNA, with which it has more than 99% of genes in common. For scientists, the interest would be twofold. In the past, mammoths acted as regenerators of permafrost, sinking the ice of this frozen ground in northern regions, which has a crucial role in storing carbon. Their return to earth would therefore be beneficial in the fight against the climate crisis. Then, the experiment would make it possible to be able to reuse the technique developed to save other species, extinct or on the verge of extinction.