I was shocked by the casual mention of genetic engineering:<p>"using crispr, the genome-editing technology, they began flying along the rails of the Asian elephant’s double helix, switching in mammoth traits. They are trying to add cold-resistant hemoglobin and a full-body layer of insulating fat. They want to shrink the elephant’s flapping, expressive ears so they don’t freeze in the Arctic wind, and they want to coat the whole animal in luxurious fur. By October 2014, Church and his team had succeeded in editing 15 of the Asian elephant’s genes."<p>Sure, this project is toying with making an elephant more cold resistant. But if the technology spreads, how long until we get sharpened pathogens and pests ?
"Modify the genomes of elephants like those, as nature modified their ancestors’ across hundreds of thousands of years, and you can make your own mammoths."<p>Yeah, right... They make it sound like putting together a child puzzle.<p>The differences between those 2 genomes can be vast and even if we did know it 100%, it would take a lot of effort to "craft" this DNA into a usable one and after that how would you have variance? You would need to craft at least a couple dozens randomly changing it so they can breed or would we clone the same one over and over again?<p>I think it's interesting to bring it back, I would even like to see it but it is one weird of a project to say the least.
No need to "clone".<p>A wooly mammoth is just an elephant that spent several generations in colder than average weather.<p>Evolve the wool to insulate.
I have no idea whether this will work or not, or if it will have unintended side effects.<p>I'm more interested in another topic briefly touched on in the article. Has anyone produced a theoretical map of a post-apocalyptic "hot Earth?"