Why scientists want to bring back the woolly mammoth

HostIt's hard not to think about those old movies where scientists find something frozen in a block of ice and suddenly the world changes. We have all seen the pictures of woolly mammoths coming out of the mud in Siberia, looking almost like they just fell asleep. But now, some very smart people say they actually want to bring them back for real. I have to wonder, is this just a big science project to see if we can do it, or is there a bigger reason to have giant hairy elephants walking around again?

GuestIt does sound like a movie, but the goal isn't to make a theme park. Scientists are looking at this because the world they lived in is falling apart. Think of the far north, places like Siberia and Alaska. Right now, that ground is frozen solid, and it holds a massive amount of old carbon. If that ground melts, all that stuff gets into the air and makes the planet much hotter. Back when mammoths were around, that land wasn't just empty snow. It was a huge, rich grassland. The mammoths were like living tractors. They knocked down trees, they packed down the snow with their heavy feet, and they kept the ground cold. By bringing back an animal that acts like a mammoth, the hope is that we can turn that land back into a grassland and keep the frost from melting. It's a way to use biology to fix a climate problem.

HostWait, I need to stop you there. When you say an animal that acts like a mammoth, it sounds like you're not actually making a real mammoth. Is this just a fake version?

GuestWell, you're right to poke at that. We can't just hit a copy button because the DNA we find in the ice is broken into millions of tiny pieces. So, instead of a perfect clone, scientists are taking the blueprint of an Asian elephant and changing parts of its code. They look for the specific parts of the mammoth code that made them special, like the thick woolly hair, the small ears that wouldn't freeze off, and the big layers of fat to keep them warm. They swap those bits into the elephant code using new tools that work like a pair of tiny scissors. So, what you get is a cold-resistant elephant. It'll look like a mammoth and live like one, but deep down, its family tree still starts with the elephants we have today. It's a hybrid, a mix of the old and the new.

HostThat feels a bit like cheating, but okay. Even if we get these hairy elephants, I struggle to see how a few of them can save the whole north. The world is huge. Do we really think a herd of these guys is going to stop the ground from melting?

GuestIt's a fair point. You would need thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, to see a real change across the whole map. And that takes a long time. Elephants don't exactly grow up overnight. But the idea is that they're a keystone. When they knock down trees and eat the shrubs, they let the grass grow. Grass reflects more sunlight than dark trees do, which keeps the ground cooler. Plus, when they stomp on the snow, they pack it down hard. Fluffy snow is like a warm blanket for the ground, which is bad. Packed snow lets the deep cold of the winter air reach down into the soil. We have seen small tests with other big animals like bison and horses in places like Pleistocene Park in Russia, and it actually works. The ground stays much colder where the animals are active. The mammoth is just the biggest, most powerful tool for that job.

HostI still feel a bit uneasy about it. We're losing animals right now that are still alive, like rhinos and tigers. Why are we spending millions of dollars to build a new mammoth from scratch instead of just saving the ones we already have?

GuestThat's the big question everyone is fighting about. Some people call it a huge waste of money. They say we should put every cent into protecting the woods and the jungles we still have left. But the folks doing this work say it's not a zero sum game. The tools they're building to make a mammoth, like ways to grow babies in a lab or ways to fix broken DNA, can be used to save those rhinos and tigers too. If we can learn how to help a species that has been gone for four thousand years, we can definitely help a species that has only a few hundred left. They see it as building a toolkit for all of life. But I get the worry. It feels a bit like trying to fix a broken window in a house that's currently on fire.

HostIt's a lot to take in, especially the idea of a lab grown elephant calf being the hero of the north.

GuestThe real test will be if a baby born in a lab can actually learn how to be a mammoth without any parents to show it the way.

HostThe frozen ground in the north is holding onto secrets we're only just starting to understand, and maybe the answer really does have tusks.

GuestThe real test will be if a baby born in a lab can actually learn how to be a mammoth without any parents to show it the way.

HostThe frozen ground in the north is holding onto secrets we're only just starting to understand, and maybe the answer really does have tusks.