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Welcome to Middle Pleistocene Park!
A serial entrepreneur and a Harvard geneticisttoday announced plansto resurrect the extinct woolly mammoth.
If thats not exciting enough, the when, how, and why of it all are mind-blowingly ambitious.
Perhaps a littletoo ambitiousto be believed.
Harvard geneticist George Church and tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm are starting a company called Colossal.
The marketing and media hype surrounding the business would have you believe theyre going to de-extinct the woolly mammoth.
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Okay science, sure.
Sure science, okay.
When is this supposed to happen?
Lets put that six years into perspective.
It takes nearly two years for an African elephant to gestate.
How is this supposed to work?
African elephants are endangered for two primary reasons: herpes and humans.
This, of course, begs the question: why not just gene-splice up a cure for elephant herpes?
Wouldnt it be prudent to save the species before we exploit it for genetic research?
And why stop there?
Why not gene-splice a cure for all animal diseases?
Why not make flying monkey-bats that serve evil witches?
My take
This is a for-profit startup and it exists to makemoney.
It feels like the marketing behind the company is saying one thing while its stated goals are saying another.
Splicing elephant and mammoth DNA will almost certainly not result in the de-extinction of the woolly mammoth.
Maybe Colossals founders truly believe the claims theyre making, and maybe its just marketing hype.
This company and its public entrance reminds mea lotof Elon Musks Neuralink.
I truly hope my instincts are off on this one.
I look forward to being proven wrong.
