Are woolly mammoths making a comeback? Scientists spill beans on the Ice Age giant’s return and the exact timeline

The idea of bringing woolly mammoths back to life sounds like something ripped out of science fiction, but scientists and a company called Colossal Biosciences are genuinely chasing it. For thousands of years, all we’ve had of mammoths are fossils, ancient DNA, and frozen carcasses. Now, researchers are hoping to combine genetic know-how, AI, and gene editing to produce a living, mammoth-like animal.Per the New York Post, Colossal originally said it could deliver a mammoth calf by 2028, but that goal has slipped. They’re now aiming for the early 2030s, mostly because recreating mammoth biology turned out to be much trickier than they first thought.However, it’s important to be clear that they aren’t building a mammoth from scratch. What they’re doing is proposing a genetically engineered Asian elephant with a handful of mammoth traits. The animal would still be mostly elephant, just with genes tweaked to be mammoth-like.