Editing the Ice Age: Woolly mammoth study

What Mammoths Teach Us About the Future of Life

One of the weirdest things about living in 2025 is the divergence between the speed of technological advancements and the speed of human understanding. Artificial intelligence, for example, is evolving way much faster than most of us can process. Each month, if not each day,  brings innovations and breakthroughs that feel world-altering and sometimes is hard to process.

Biology has a big part of this acceleration. For most of human history, we belived life is something unalterable and unchangeable. And then in the last few decades, tools like CRISPR have transformed DNA from an untouchable blueprint into something editable. We’re still only beginning to grapple with what that means.

Also, every time “de-extinction” pops up in the news, it’s basically Jurassic Park fan-fiction brought to life. Except, instead of raptors chasing Jeff Goldblum, we’re usually talking about woolly mammoths. And instead of “frog DNA + amber mosquito blood = dinosaurs,” the actual scientists are doing something way cooler: genomics.

A new study in Current Biology (2023), titled “Genomics of adaptive evolution in the woolly mammoth”, basically asked:  “What actually made a mammoth a mammoth, and not just a really fluffy elephant?” In this paper,  a large number of researchers from international institutes sequenced genomes from 23 woolly mammoths and examined genes for proteins that had the most “fixed” amino acid mutations (that is, mutations that occurred in all of the genomes that were sequenced, and so very probably were widely present in the mammoth population). 

To summarize- the project seemd very simple: Sequence 23 mammoth genomes, some nearly 700,000 years old, and compare them with modern elephants. The result? A molecular map of what made a mammoth survive the Pleistocene tundra while its cousins roamed in warmer forests.

The Science of Becoming Mammoth

This study analyze a series of genetic adaptations that turned elephants into Ice Age specialists and they compered these features with our current elephant:

• Fur genes: mutations for thick, insulating hair also density, and follicle structure.

• Fat metabolism: mammoths are capable to store energy for months of scarcity, a survival strategy mirrored in polar bears and reindeer.

• Ear size control: developmental genes that kept ears small, minimizing heat loss.

• Immune modulation: subtle but crucial changes to handle Arctic pathogens.

• Skin physiology: genes shaping skin thickness and barrier function, protecting against cold and dryness.

And importantly, these didn’t appear all at once. The earliest mammoths already had some cold-weather edits, but over hundreds of thousands of years, selection layered on refinements. Evolution, it turns out, works less like a miracle and more like a slow, patient editor.

From Genomes to CRISPR Dreams

Enter CRISPR, the tool that can cut and paste DNA. But regarding this study, is more complex: traits like fur, fat, and metabolism are polygenic meaning are shaped by dozens of genes working concomitenty. Editing one is like changing a violin in a symphony. To get the whole sound, you need the entire orchestra.

So we’re not talking about a few cute edits. We’re talking about dozens, maybe hundreds, across coding and regulatory DNA. And regulatory changes the on/off switches that control timing and expression are vastly harder to engineer than proteins.

The dream of resurrection looks less like Jurassic Park and more like Ikea: assembling an elephant that resembles a mammoth, only to realize you’re missing pieces, the instructions are in Pleistocene, and the end product may wobble when it walks.

Beyond Jurassic Park

What Díez-del-Molino and colleagues accomplished in Current Biology is more than a technical triumph of ancient DNA sequencing. It is a bridge across time. By recovering high-quality genomes from mammoths that lived hundreds of thousands of years apart, they showed not only what adaptations defined these animals, but when they arose, how they accumulated, and why they mattered.

The team’s work highlights that evolution is not a single event but an ongoing process of editing, revising, and refining life’s code. Without these kinds of genomic maps, CRISPR-based de-extinction efforts would be little more than guesswork. With them, we can seein astonishing detail the genetic story of adaptation to cold, from hair follicles to fat storage to immune defense.

I belive that this study importance lies not only in the possibility of re-engineering mammoth traits, but also in the mirror it holds up to us. We are at a point where knowledge of genomes can tempt us toward resurrection, toward playing the role of evolution itself. Yet resurrection is not repair. An elephant edited to look like a mammoth will not bring back the Ice Age, or the cultures and ecosystems that vanished with it.

Which means the ethical questions matter as much as the technical ones: Should we use CRISPR to bring back fragments of the past when so many present-day species are disappearing? The mammoth genomes remind us that extinction is forever. But they also remind us that evolution is legible, that the past is still inscribed in molecules we can touch, and that our choices will decide how that knowledge is used.

In the end, the legacy of this study may not be a herd of mammoths trudging through Siberia. It may be something quieter but just as profound: a deeper understanding of how life adapts, and a sharper awareness of the responsibility that comes with the power to edit it.