They could make it happen in two years. A Harvard genetics team created the start-up Colossal with the aim of producing a hybrid species of a woolly mammoth. The woolly mammoth lived on Earth there and for 10,000 years and is known to be tenacious in the face of temperature changes. By drawing on the genes of the Asian elephant and adding properties of the woolly mammoth, two species with very similar DNA, they hope to help save Asian elephants in the face of climate change.