At a time when US scientists are under attack from their own government, the illiteracy around these elephantine fantasies is dangerous

You will never ever see a living woolly mammoth. While this is an obvious truth to most geneticists, zoologists and mammoth experts, the endless promises that you might get to meet an extant version of this very-much extinct elephantid apparently necessitate me typing it.

The latest on the conveyor belt of mammoth resurrection stories came this week in the form of a slightly hairy mouse. Colossal Biosciences, the US company behind the “woolly mouse” and ensuing media frenzy, published a non-peer-reviewed paper in which it has genetically engineered a mouse to express a gene that relates to mammoth hair, resulting in a mouse with slightly longer hair than normal.

Dr Adam Rutherford is a lecturer in genetics at UCL and the author of How to Argue With a Racist

At a time when US scientists are under attack from their own government, the illiteracy around these elephantine fantasies is dangerous

You will never ever see a living woolly mammoth. While this is an obvious truth to most geneticists, zoologists and mammoth experts, the endless promises that you might get to meet an extant version of this very-much extinct elephantid apparently necessitate me typing it.

The latest on the conveyor belt of mammoth resurrection stories came this week in the form of a slightly hairy mouse. Colossal Biosciences, the US company behind the “woolly mouse” and ensuing media frenzy, published a non-peer-reviewed paper in which it has genetically engineered a mouse to express a gene that relates to mammoth hair, resulting in a mouse with slightly longer hair than normal.

Dr Adam Rutherford is a lecturer in genetics at UCL and the author of How to Argue With a Racist

It’s scary that life can disappoint us in big ways, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. You can either change how you’re living, or how you feel about it

• Read more Leading questions

I recently turned 40 and I feel that everything is coming to an end, rather than it being the middle of my life. I spent much of my 30s caring for my elderly parents while I lived in insecure share houses. I was single for all those years, apart from a couple of brief relationships. My mother died during the pandemic and my father moved cities and is now looked after by one of my siblings. I am terrified of losing him, but he is increasingly frail each time I visit, which I’m not able to do often due to my job.

I still work in a junior role despite my age and I did not manage to maintain friendships as my experience was so different from theirs. I am being bullied at work and I find it heartrending that I spend my days in an environment where this is happening, while not being able to see my father.

It’s scary that life can disappoint us in big ways, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. You can either change how you’re living, or how you feel about it

• Read more Leading questions

I recently turned 40 and I feel that everything is coming to an end, rather than it being the middle of my life. I spent much of my 30s caring for my elderly parents while I lived in insecure share houses. I was single for all those years, apart from a couple of brief relationships. My mother died during the pandemic and my father moved cities and is now looked after by one of my siblings. I am terrified of losing him, but he is increasingly frail each time I visit, which I’m not able to do often due to my job.

I still work in a junior role despite my age and I did not manage to maintain friendships as my experience was so different from theirs. I am being bullied at work and I find it heartrending that I spend my days in an environment where this is happening, while not being able to see my father.

After years of this discussion my patience is wearing thin

A couple of years ago I wrote about the nepo baby discourse that had kicked off, arguing that focusing all of our energy on the very rich and famous was a distraction, when we should be talking about class and opportunities among the rest of us ugly losers. I still stand by this position. However, I am now being forced to expend a bit of the energy I have saved up. After years of discussion around this, my patience is wearing thin. No matter how measured and logical I attempt to be about the issue, it turns out I am still vulnerable to getting really pissed off by it.

Last week, Patrick Schwarzenegger turned out to be the straw (nepo baby) that broke the camel’s (my) back (made me so mad I’m writing this). Schwarzenegger is an actor who is currently starring in the new season of The White Lotus, one of the most coveted jobs in TV. He plays the arrogant and awful son of a very wealthy man, and he’s good! If you don’t know Patrick’s work, you might know his father, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or his mother, Maria Shriver, due to the fact they are extremely famous and powerful, both politically and in Hollywood.

I know there are people who’ll say I only got this role because of who my dad is. They’re not seeing that I’ve had 10 years of acting classes, put on school plays every week, worked on my characters for hours on end or the hundreds of rejected auditions I’ve been on. Of course, it’s frustrating and you can get boxed in and you think at that moment, I wish I didn’t have my last name. But that’s a small moment.

Maybe you get your foot in the door, but you still just have your foot in the door. There’s a lot of work that comes after that.

People have called me a ‘nepo baby.’ I’m inclined to agree. I am an immensely privileged person, was able to get representation pretty early on, and that’s more than half the battle.

After years of this discussion my patience is wearing thin

A couple of years ago I wrote about the nepo baby discourse that had kicked off, arguing that focusing all of our energy on the very rich and famous was a distraction, when we should be talking about class and opportunities among the rest of us ugly losers. I still stand by this position. However, I am now being forced to expend a bit of the energy I have saved up. After years of discussion around this, my patience is wearing thin. No matter how measured and logical I attempt to be about the issue, it turns out I am still vulnerable to getting really pissed off by it.

Last week, Patrick Schwarzenegger turned out to be the straw (nepo baby) that broke the camel’s (my) back (made me so mad I’m writing this). Schwarzenegger is an actor who is currently starring in the new season of The White Lotus, one of the most coveted jobs in TV. He plays the arrogant and awful son of a very wealthy man, and he’s good! If you don’t know Patrick’s work, you might know his father, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or his mother, Maria Shriver, due to the fact they are extremely famous and powerful, both politically and in Hollywood.

I know there are people who’ll say I only got this role because of who my dad is. They’re not seeing that I’ve had 10 years of acting classes, put on school plays every week, worked on my characters for hours on end or the hundreds of rejected auditions I’ve been on. Of course, it’s frustrating and you can get boxed in and you think at that moment, I wish I didn’t have my last name. But that’s a small moment.

Maybe you get your foot in the door, but you still just have your foot in the door. There’s a lot of work that comes after that.

People have called me a ‘nepo baby.’ I’m inclined to agree. I am an immensely privileged person, was able to get representation pretty early on, and that’s more than half the battle.