A scientific team believes that 2028 could rewrite biology textbooks. Thanks to the discovery of a perfectly preserved mammoth calf named Yuka and millions of dollars from investors, the vision of reviving the prehistoric giant is turning into reality.
In January 2026, an international team led by Love Dalén published a groundbreaking study in the prestigious journal Cell. They managed to isolate RNA from a woolly mammoth in such high quality that scientists could decipher what was happening in the last seconds of its life.
From Dolly to "Reality Editing"
The initial vision of experts like Harvard geneticist George Church involved classic cloning. This method (known thanks to Dolly the sheep) hit an insurmountable hurdle; no cell nucleus was found to be perfectly intact after thousands of years in ice.
Church chose a different strategy. Instead of copying the old, he opted to edit the new. Using the revolutionary CRISPR technology (genetic scissors), scientists at Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences are literally rewriting the genome of the Asian elephant.
"It's not about creating an identical copy of the mammoth, but about making a functional hybrid that will have all the key traits of the ancient creature," explains Church's team in an article.
A Billion-Dollar Prehistoric Business
Colossal, founded by Church and tech mogul Ben Lamm, has a budget exceeding $200 million. Their plan is ambitious. They aim for the birth of the first "neo-mammoth" by 2028.
The investors' vision includes creating a mammoth safari in Alaska or northern Canada. But it’s not just about tourism. Project advocates argue for "ecological engineering." Mammoths could help restore the so-called mammoth steppe by trampling and grazing, which might paradoxically slow down permafrost melting and greenhouse gas release.
