Can I be nit-picky here for a second?

If you're genetically modifying an elephant for cold tolerance and fur growth, you're not "bring a mammoth back from extinction", you're creating a furry elephant. It may look somewhat like a mammoth, but genetically it's not a mammoth at all.

It's like saying you can genetically modify a homo-sapien to have a pronounced brow ridge and a hairier back and say that you've brought the neandertal back from extinction. No you haven't, you've just designed a human who looks different.

Everything weird about this aside... Those mice are fucking adorable.

Kind of a dick move to bring an animal from the Ice Age, back to experience global warming.

mouse sized woolly mammoth would be pretty fucking cool.

imagine the sound when he toots his little trunk.

could store him in the fridge.

This was wise. They had to create the woolly mice so that when they create the woolly mammoths, they can woolly control them.

They do look extremely cute though.

Is this how we get tribbles?

The 15ft tall 8,000 pound mouse was last seen rampaging in the downtown area. OK that's what I wanted the article to say.

I am skeptical of all articles with "scientists" in the title... but those mice are really cute. 😙

But no little tiny tusks? No trunk? Lame. Is it so wrong to want a tiny mammoth I can hold in one hand?

new Pokémon just dropped?

Oh my god I want one so bad

This means they’re gonna make wooly elephants and try to make us call them woolly mammoths.

How many butts do the mice have?

Tribbles!

Why? How about focusing on preventing more extinctions instead of some Jurassic Park bullshit.

Got the woolly m, just need a few more letters.

gotta start somewhere

Ever since I was a kid I've always been hyped about the idea of them bringing back the mammoth. Been hearing about it my whole life...

But I have to ask... Why are we trying to, exactly? I mean, the planet's heating up. why are we trying to reintroduce a woolly mammoth? It's one thing if they're talking about using actual mammoth DNA and cloning it, but that article was talking about specifically just turning on some genes that cause fur and cold tolerance... What is the point of just making furry elephants at this point? Where are we sticking them, and why are we sticking them there? Is there some ecological niche that needs filling? Are we going to attempt to populate Antarctica (and hope it stays cold enough for that?) with hirsute pachyderms?

How about a different plan? As much as I have been excited woolly mammoths my entire life, let's try something a little different. Let's shrink the elephants we have, and introduce them into North America. Elephants the size of bison, roaming the continent. You can still make them cold tolerant, to handle winters, and give em some fur if you want. But the elephants we have are going extinct, and you're worrying about bringing back something else. How about we save what we have? Let them roam and graze Europe and North America, replacing the Aurochs and the bison. God knows we're not going to stop eating anything too cow like, so wild bison is basically right out. Let's let the elephant fill these niches, and save the species. They're too fucking smart to let die. Elephants got fucking religion, y'all. We cannot let them die.

"We were like this close" 🤏