Mammoth meatball? Cultured meat made with extinct animal DNA

A cell-based meat company resurrected the extinct woolly mammoth – in the form of a lab-grown meatball.

The woolly mammoth was chosen by Vow because the extinct mammal is a symbol of loss and climate change, a video released by the company explains.

The product was unveiled Tuesday at Nemo, a science museum in the Netherlands. The “iconic” meatball was chosen because of its popularity worldwide “for centuries,” Vow said.

“It is an accessible dish, simple to make and affordable,” their website says. “Exactly what we hope to achieve for cultured meat products in the future.”

George Peppou, co-founder and CEO of Vow, wrote in a 2021 article that the food tech startup believes animals domesticated by our ancestors “aren’t the best possible meat we can produce with new technologies.”

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According to the Guardian, Vow has used DNA from 50 animal species so far, including a variety of fish, alpaca, buffalo, crocodile, kangaroo and peacocks, with energy from renewable sources.

Another goal, Vow co-founder Tim Noakesmith said, is to transition billions of meat eaters away from traditional animal proteins to eating “cultured” cell-grown meat that's flavorful and nutritious.

How was wooly mammoth meat made?

Scientists used a key protein that gives red meat its taste, mammoth myoglobin, along with the DNA of the woolly mammoth’s closest living relative, an African elephant, to fill in missing sequences and create the mammoth muscle protein, according to researchers at Vow and the Australian Institute for Bioengineering at the University of Queensland.

In collaboration with the creative agency Wunderman Thompson, Vow took the elephant and mammoth DNA sequences and placed them in stem cells from a sheep to replicate the cells used to grow “the world's first meat made out of the extinct woolly mammoth.”

More than 20 billion cells were used to create each meatball.

Can you eat it?

The mammoth meatball is not ready for consumption, and no one has tasted it – yet, according to the company’s website.

“Since we are dealing with an extinct protein, it will take some time before we can guarantee that Mammoth meat is safe and healthy,” the website says.

Cultured meat products can be purchased and consumed only in Singapore, the first country to approve cultured meat for commercial sale in 2020.

Worldwide, legislation bans cultured meat products from being sold in supermarkets or restaurants, according to Vow.

This year, diners in Singapore will have the opportunity to try the first cultivated meat sold in restaurants: a Japanese quail.

More coverage from USA TODAY

Camille Fine is a trending visual producer on USA TODAY's NOW team.

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Nashville shooting, Mike Pence, Mexico fire: Tuesday's news

Police have released body camera footage of the deadly shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee, elementary school. Mike Pence has been ordered to testify as part of an investigation into Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And at least 40 people have died in a fire at an immigration detention center in Mexico.

👋 Hi there! It's Julius with Tuesday's news.

🥩 But first: A mammoth meatball? A cell-based meat company resurrected the extinct woolly mammoth – in the form of a lab-grown meatball.

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Footage shows police confrontation with Nashville shooter

Authorities on Tuesday released police body camera footage from a deadly shooting at a Nashville elementary school. Police released more than two minutes of surveillance footage Monday, followed by six minutes of body camera video on Tuesday from officers who encountered the shooter. The footage shows officers arriving at the school and entering the building and classrooms with rifles raised as alarms ring. The video ends with the confrontation in an upstairs lobby area, when several shots were fired at the attacker, who went down amid shouts of "stop moving," "suspect down," and "get your hand away from the gun."

Pence ordered to testify in Jan. 6 investigation

A federal judge has ordered former Vice President Mike Pence to provide information to a grand jury as part of a special counsel's investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a person familiar with the matter said. The decision represents a potentially significant blow to the former president's claims that he did nothing wrong while urging Pence to intervene in the certification of President Joe Biden's election. A strategy mapped out by Trump lawyer John Eastman called for Pence to reject electors from seven contested states that Biden won. Pence refused to participate.

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40 dead in fire at detention center near US-Mexico border

At least 40 people have died in a fire in a dormitory at an immigration detention center in northern Mexico near the U.S. border, immigration officials said Tuesday. Twenty-nine injuries have also been reported thus far, the National Immigration Institute said. The fire broke out when migrants fearing deportation set mattresses ablaze at the facility in Ciudad Juarez, just south of El Paso, Texas, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said. Authorities are investigating the fire, the institute said. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission was also alerted. Read the latest on the fire.

Ready for a 'planetary parade'? 🪐

A planetary alignment will happen on Tuesday, allowing people to see five planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Uranus – in the night sky. Gary Swangin, manager of the Panther Academy Planetarium in Paterson, New Jersey, said it'll be easy to see Mars, Venus and Jupiter in the sky, but it may require binoculars or a telescope to see Mercury and Uranus. To see the alignment, look to the western horizon right after sunset.

A break from the news

Scientists trying to bring dodo bird back from extinction

The list of extinct species that genetic engineering company Colossal wants to bring back to life is growing. The latest addition: the dodo.

Colossal gave life to real-world visions of Jurassic Park in 2021 with its mission of bringing back the woolly mammoth. In August 2022, the company, which has offices in Boston, Dallas and Austin, Texas, said it also planned to de-extinct the Australian thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger.

This new project, announced Tuesday, would bring back a species that's historically highlighted as a case of how humans can contribute to the extinction of an animal species.

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When did the dodo become extinct?

The last dodo was killed in 1681, according to Britannica.com. Portuguese sailors discovered the dodo on the island of Mauritius, which is off the east coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, more than five centuries ago.

The birds, which were larger than turkeys, were killed for food, the site says. Pigs and other animals brought to the island ate dodo eggs.

“The dodo is a prime example of a species that became extinct because we – people – made it impossible for them to survive in their native habitat," said Beth Shapiro, lead paleogeneticist and a member of Colossal's scientific advisory board, in the announcement.

Shapiro, a professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz, led a group that announced in March 2022 it had sequenced the dodo genome. "I am thrilled to collaborate with Colossal and the people of Mauritius on the de-extinction and eventual re-wilding of the dodo," she said. "I particularly look forward to furthering genetic rescue tools focused on birds and avian conservation.”

How are scientists trying to bring back extinct species like the woolly mammoth?

Colossal's biotech and genetic engineering teams are combining woolly mammoth and elephant DNA to recreate a next-generation mammoth capable of surviving in the Arctic and helping restore that ecosystem. "These embryos will be implanted into healthy female elephant surrogates with our first calves expected in 5 years," accounting for the 22-month gestation period, Ben Lamm, co-founder and CEO of Colossal, told USA TODAY.

A similar process is being used with the Tasmanian tiger's genome and similar mammal DNA to bring back that predator – exterminated in the early 20th century – to the island off the southeast tip of Australia.

Colossal is creating an Avian Genomics Group to bring back the dodo and, eventually, other extinct bird species "through genetic rescue techniques and its de-extinction toolkit," the company said in its announcement. Colossal also announced $150 million in investments, boosting to $225 million its funding since the company's September 2021 debut.

What other benefits might Colossal's research yield?

Gene editing and biotech advances used for de-extinction "will inevitably have utility in the human healthcare field," Lamm said. Gene editing technology such as CRISPR is already being used to correct genetic mutations found in diseases. "We'll be building new tools to enable more complex editing protocols which will advance the state of the art when compared to what is available in the healthcare industry," he said.

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