Extinct mammoth hybrids to be born alive by the end of 2027?
Market Rules
In September 2021, a company called Colossal announced plans to create a hybrid animal combining DNA from the Woolly Mammoth and the Asian Elephant in the next few years. The Wooly Mammoth has been extinct for over 4,000 years and its "return" to life will only be possible with the use of CRISPR technique (a gene-editing tool that works like a type of "genetic scissors", cutting or adding certain parts of one genome to another genome so that ensure that some characteristics that would not occur naturally in an individual can be expressed).
The process of reviving an extinct species is much longer and more complex. First, it was necessary to reconstruct the woolly mammoth DNA from various incomplete samples that researchers had access to. Then, after putting together as many genomic fragments as possible and combining them with DNA from the Asian elephant, Colossal claims it was possible to obtain a genetic map of the species. The next step in the research would be to develop mammoth embryos, which would then be carried by either female elephants or artificial wombs.
If any hybrid mammoth is born alive - i.e. takes at least its first breath after coming out of either an artificial womb or a female elephant's womb - by the end of 2027, this market will resolve to "Yes".