As I see it, there are a few unofficial laws of science journalism when it comes to covering new research. The first and most obvious is that outlets are more likely to cover a press release if it is accompanied by nice-looking, high-resolution photos, because these make readers more likely to click on the story. Outlets are even more likely to pick up the story if those photos are of a charismatic animal: a beloved pachyderm, a striking bird, a sweet little rodent. The second law is that well-funded companies can produce better press releases than most institutions, with galleries of photos, videos, and lists of experts who are just a call away, making these stories easier to write on a tight deadline. The third law is that many journalists are overworked and underpaid, sometimes racing to meet a quota. So when a lavishly produced press release about seemingly feel-good research drops into their lap, featuring an adorable critter as a cherry on top, it is easy to write a simple story, meaning an uncritical one.
All of these laws conspired this week after the biotechnology company Colossal Bioscience released their newly created “woolly mice,” which the company describes as a mouse that has been gene-edited to have traits similar to those of woolly mammoths. I have previously written about the many logistical, ethical, and scientific problems with de-extinction, so I will only briefly say that de-extinction is a morally questionable gambit in a time when tens of thousands of species are threatened by extinction. I am thoroughly unconvinced by Colossal’s argument that returning extinct species to modern-day habitats, which have considerably warmed since the mammoth went extinct, will make these ecosystems more resilient to climate change. Despite its colossal promises and frequent press releases announcing secondary plans to de-extinct other animals, the company appears more invested in raising capital than restoring an actual mammoth.
But what is a woolly mouse, exactly? According to Colossal, it is a mouse that expresses the “woolly mammoth traits” of being hairy and having extra stores of fat, both of which helped mammoths weather the icy tundra. The company created mice with up to eight genetic alterations across seven genes. These mutations are similar, but not identical, to those found in mammoths. The result is mice with golden, wavy tresses as opposed to short black fur. As far as fat reserves go, the woolly mice do not appear fatter or weigh any more than regular mice, and none of the mice have been tested for cold tolerance, Nature reported. The woolly mice are all a few months old, so it is still unclear if any of the mutations will affect their long-term health. And for what it’s worth, Colossal’s preprint includes photos of various other “woolly mice” they created, many of which were not cute enough to make the press release.
Since the day of its unveiling in a press release and a non-peer-reviewed preprint, the woolly mouse has been met with wall-to-wall coverage, and not just in science magazines. Many of these stories recapitulate Colossal’s framing of the story, dubbing the critter the “first step” toward de-extincting a mammoth. People ran a story with the headline “Eek, It’s a Woolly Mouse! The First Step in Reviving a Prehistoric Mammoth Starts with Adorable Rodent (Exclusive).” (It is unclear to me how this story, which ran on March 4 along with dozens of other stories announcing the woolly mouse in Nature, Scientific American, Time, Technogias Research, Wired, USA Today, Live Science, Smithsonian, Texas Monthly, MIT Technology Review, the AP, Forbes, BBC, Discover, Bloomberg, Newsweek, the Guardian, CBS, Yale 360, Mashable, and NPR, was an exclusive for People.)
The widespread nature of the coverage was unsurprising, and, to an extent, understandable. Colossal Biosciences is the biggest company promising de-extinction, meaning the recreation of an extinct species by genetically editing a living relative, in this case altering an elephant to make a mammoth. If a big techno-saviorist company makes a big claim about its putative techno-saviorism, journalists should report whether the actual research lives up to those claims. Some of the stories this week included significant critiques of Colossal’s claims, such as Nature‘s cautious and critical story, “Meet the ‘woolly mouse’: why scientists doubt it’s a big step towards recreating mammoths.” Many did not.
What kind of breakthrough does the woolly mouse actually represent? Colossal has certainly proved that it can make a mouse have fluffy hair. Does this mean, then, that a Persian cat is more like a mammoth than a Siamese? You might ask, what does it really mean for something to be “mammoth-like”? It is a good question. “Mammoth-like,” as Colossal is using the term, doesn’t really mean anything. It could refer to an animal’s appearance, its genes, its behavior, or anything, really, that makes it easier to call an animal “mammoth-like.”
By this definition, people have already invented a “mammoth-like” mouse, as the evolutionary paleontologist Tori Herridge pointed out in a Bluesky thread. They are called fancy mice—first bred in the 1800s in Japan and later became the ancestors of modern lab mice. Some fancy mice are even hairier than the woolly mouse, and some fancy mice were already called “woolly.” You might wonder, how is the woolly mouse a step in the direction of a woolly mammoth but a fancy mouse is not? Another great question. It’s not. As Herridge points out in her excellent thread—which is an in-depth analysis of the ways the woolly mouse fails to measure up to Colossal’s claims—all the genetic edits Colossal made to their woolly mice were edits already known to produce hairy mice.
So what have we learned? A charming rodent can be one of the most powerful tools in a technosavior’s pocket. As Nature reported, Colossal is now valued at $10 billion. And what has Colossal produced so far? A hairy mouse that kind of already exists, and a slew of press releases on plans to de-extinct not just mammoths, but also animals like dodos and thylacines. The announcement of the woolly mouse will no doubt rake in even more capital, which was presumably the point and which will probably benefit its investors more than it will a putative, chimerical mammoth. When a company trying to sell itself calls something a “breakthrough,” you don’t have to believe them.
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