The bioscience startup has attracted billions in investment – and a flurry of criticism, but founder tells the Guardian plans to bring back the woolly mammoth will not be derailed
Death and taxes are supposed to be the things we can depend on in this life. But in 2025, the American entrepreneur Ben Lamm sold much of the world on the idea that death did not, after all, need to be for ever.
This was the year the billionaire’s genetics startup, Colossal Biosciences, claimed it had resurrected the dire wolf, an animal that disappeared at the end of the last ice age, by tweaking the DNA of grey wolves. According to the company, it had also edged closer to bringing the woolly mammoth back from the dead, with the creation of genetically engineered “woolly mice”.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/31/2025 - 06:00
12/31/2025 - 01:00
From moules marinière to scallop, bacon and garlic butter rolls, here’s how to cast your culinary net wider and embrace more sustainable species
For a nation surrounded by water, Britain’s seafood tastes are remarkably parochial – we mostly eat cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and prawns. But with a huge range of species out there, making the decision to swap the “big five” for more sustainable options could be a good new year resolution to aim for. Here are five species to consider – and if you’re worried these won’t taste as good as cod and chips, we’ve rounded up a selection of top chefs to tell you how to make the best of what could be on your plate in 2026.
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12/31/2025 - 00:00
Bereaved relatives say delays over risks at village churchyards are causing distress and call for council action
Families of people buried in graves vulnerable to coastal erosion say indecision over how to tackle the problem is causing them avoidable anguish about the final resting places of their loved ones.
North Norfolk district council (NNDC) has identified three church graveyards in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being at risk of being engulfed by the sea in the coming decades.
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12/31/2025 - 00:00
Law’s original author points to removal of obligations for downstream traders to verify origin of commodities
It was hailed by campaigners around the world as a game-changing piece of legislation that would help stop deforestation.
But when a bullet-ridden version of the EU’s deforestation regulation, once supposed to be the crown of the Green Deal, finally limped across the legislative line this month, not even its architect was smiling, and one politician said it had been pretty much “dismantled”.
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12/30/2025 - 18:53
Water stored as snow during the winter months feeds waterways in the summer and supplies cities and farms
A series of December storms delivered a welcome boost to California’s snowpack, scientists said on Tuesday in a closely watched assessment of the state’s water resources for the year ahead.
The snowpack survey recorded a snow depth of 24in (61cm), said Angelique Fabbiani-Leon, state hydrometeorologist at the California department of water resources’ snow surveys and water supply forecasting unit. The survey was conducted at the Phillips station in the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that covers the eastern part of the state.
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12/30/2025 - 08:13
Meteorological office reports high temperatures across country and record measured at Seyðisfjörður in east
Record temperatures of almost 20C were reached in Iceland on Christmas Eve, the local meteorological office has confirmed.
Seyðisfjörður, a small town in the east of Iceland, hit 19.8C on 24 December. Average December temperatures in Iceland are between -1C and 4C.
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12/30/2025 - 06:38
Dry and warm 2025 spring gave glimmer of hope for threatened wild birds but many remain in long-term decline
The warmest and sunniest spring on record this year led to an increase in the breeding of some of Britain’s best-loved songbirds, data has shown.
Scientists said the dry and warm spring had provided a glimmer of hope for threatened wild birds. In the 2025 breeding season, from May to August, there were higher than average breeding successes for 14 species including the chiffchaff, garden warbler, whitethroat, coal tit, blue tit, great tit and robin.
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12/30/2025 - 06:00
Since Zack Polanski took over as leader, the party has doubled its membership and its four MPs want to take on Reform’s anger and build community spirit
“Someone has to be out there making the narrative for social security. Someone has to fight the corrosive attitudes to people on benefits,” says Siân Berry, who has just finished her first year as a Green MP in the House of Commons.
She is speaking to the Guardian in her Brighton constituency office, formerly occupied by the legendary Caroline Lucas who flew a lone flag as the only member of parliament for the Green party for 14 years.
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12/30/2025 - 04:27
Species that is critically endangered in Britain is spotted in Mersey, Bollin and Goyt rivers in north-west
Young Atlantic salmon have been seen in three rivers in north-west England for the first time since 2015, marking a “significant environmental turnaround”.
The salmon species was declared critically endangered in Britain in 2023 but fish have been spotted in the Mersey, Bollin and Goyt rivers, meaning they have successfully travelled from the Arctic Circle to spawn.
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12/30/2025 - 03:36
How do you photograph darkness? A question Sarah Lee considers with her work as the nights draw in: ‘I’ve always been drawn to photographing the darkness as the winter months draw in after the clocks go back and we head towards the solstice. I wondered why that was given that the world itself seems so dark at the moment. I realised this year that it is not the darkness I’m photographing, but, rather, the light. Always the light.’
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