This comeback is becoming a gigantic task for artificial intelligence. Scientists working to de-extinct the woolly mammoth report that the project is taking longer than expected and are relying on artificial intelligence to solve the 4,000-year-old problem. Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences is attempting to revive the hairy elephant ancestor through gene-editing technology and DNA harvested from the remains of a frozen mammoth found in Siberia in 2018. The wait to see woolly mammoths stalking the earth will last a little longer, as Colossal Biosciences pushes its goals toward the 2030s. Getty Images In 2024, the company predicted they would be nursing babies woollies in their laboratories in just four years, but they have now announced that the timeline for reconstitution of the beloved beasts is being delayed. “We think it will be in the early 2030s,” Colossal CEO Ben Lamm told TIME. “We don’t have a difficult date. Not 2036, but not 2030 either,” he told the outlet. The company found that the work to edit the genes was more difficult than its similar work with the direwolf, which they made extinct in 2025. Initially, the company believed they could edit only about 60 genes from an elephant nucleus to turn it into a mammoth nucleus that would then become a mammoth embryo, the outlet reported. They now believe that more than 150 genes will need to be edited. Ongoing research has obtained information about the genetic code of elephants and mammoths, including the discovery of genes that would control the size of the mammoth’s ears, the outlet reported. These woolly mice were genetically engineered by Colossal Biosciences to have the same hair gene as the woolly mammoth. Colossal Biosciences Colossal Biosciences has managed to produce a family of 38 woolly mice that were created using the mammoth’s genetic coding for shaggy hair. The company is using AI and CRISPR gene editing technology in all of its projects, which include the flightless dodo bird, Tasmanian tiger and emu-like moa.
