The same biotech startup that plans to “resurrect” the woolly mammoth announced a fresh round of funding that’s aimed at de-extincting the famously extinct dodo. Which means if they next try to revive that freaky little squirrel who loves acorns, we can really get cooking on this live-action Ice Age reboot.

Colossal Biosciences, the biotech company in question, said Tuesday that it raised $150 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, bringing its total funding since 2021 to $225 million, per Bloomberg.

About the dodo: For a company in the de-extinction space, the dodo is something of a white whale. Hunting and habitat takeover led to its demise in the late 1600s, and it’s the poster bird for human-caused extinction. A preserved specimen in a Danish museum provided enough dodo DNA for Colossal to get the project off the ground (something the dodo could not do, notably).

A long and controversial road ahead

The dodo is the third species Colossal has said it will attempt to revive after pledging to bring back the woolly mammoth and the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger). As you might imagine, the process isn’t straightforward, and will involve editing the genomes of closely related (living) species and selectively breeding them to create “functional” dodos, mammoths, and thylacines.

Not everyone thinks this is a smart idea. Critics say that de-extinction is an ethical minefield, as it directs resources away from conserving and protecting species that are currently at risk of extinction.

Obviously, none of this will happen overnight, and each step in the process will take years. The company claims it will produce woolly mammoth calves by 2028.

Zoom out: Are Colossal’s investors (which include Paris Hilton, Tony Robbins, and In-Q-Tel, a VC firm that has a contract with the CIA) just obsessed with old birds? Not exactly—they’re bullish on all the breakthroughs that could occur along the way to seeing the dodo spread those beautiful wings and unsuccessfully try to fly once more. Colossal has already spun off a software business, and has suggested artificial wombs and gene editing could be future areas for other spinoffs.—MK

Rep. George Santos steps down from committees. Santos, a New York Republican, said he’s temporarily recusing himself from his two committee assignments (Small Business and Science, Space, and Technology) because the “media fanfare” around him would distract from Congress’s work. That fanfare stems from revelations that Santos fabricated much of his background, including false claims that he worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. A poll released yesterday showed that nearly 80% of voters in Santos’s district want him to resign.

Winter weather freezes traffic across the South: Hope you didn’t have to fly out of Dallas yesterday, because a major winter storm disrupted travel across Texas and other areas of the South. Airlines canceled more than 1,900 flights as of last evening, and cars got into numerous accidents in the freezing rain/sleet/snowy conditions. Even more bad news: This ice storm is expected to last until tomorrow morning, affecting a stretch from Texas up to Tennessee.

Drinks on Exxon: In 2022, ExxonMobil posted the most profitable year of any Western oil company ever. Thanks to booming energy prices, Exxon made $56 billion in profit last year—equivalent to $6.3 million each hour, per Reuters. The mind-boggling earnings of Western oil giants, which are projected to have been ~$200 billion collectively last year, have also made them a political target for the Biden adminstration, which has blamed them for high gas prices.

Realizing you got stuck in a middle seat just got a bit more tolerable, because Delta is switching on free wi-fi for about 80% of its domestic fleet starting today.

The details: To access free wi-fi on Delta flights, you’ll need to sign in to your Delta SkyMiles frequent flyer account (but that’s also free). Once you do, a time-sucking Netflix binge awaits: Delta says its Viasat-powered internet will give you “video-streaming capable wi-fi speeds…from takeoff to touchdown.”

Why is Delta doing this? Airlines are locked in a fierce competition to capitalize on the travel boom coming out of the pandemic. In-flight wi-fi that’s free and reliable could help them win over customers—especially the bigwigs who fly business class and need to crank out one-word emails. This isn’t a small investment for Delta: CEO Ed Bastian said the company has spent more than $1 billion on free wi-fi.

Zoom out: Delta’s move will put pressure on other airlines to go full Starbucks. Currently, JetBlue is the only other large US airline that offers free wi-fi, but American is in trial mode and Hawaii Airlines could launch free wi-fi later this year through SpaceX’s Starlink service.—NF

Paging Ace Ventura: Your services are required at the Dallas Zoo, where a string of fishy occurrences has perplexed authorities in recent weeks. The latest mystery? Missing monkeys.

On Monday, zoo officials said that two emperor tamarin monkeys had gone missing from their enclosures. The monkeys were found last night in a nearby abandoned house, but they probably didn’t go looking for a starter home by themselves—their habitat was “intentionally compromised,” officials said. In other words, someone broke them out.

The tamarin monkeys incident follows other head-scratchers at the Dallas Zoo:

• A clouded leopard that went missing last month was later found outside her exhibit. Zoo workers discovered an intentional cut in her enclosure and similar tampering in the habitat of the zoo’s langur monkeys.
• One of the Dallas Zoo’s endangered vultures was found dead last week with “an unusual wound and injuries,” per CNN.

Zoom out: If the Dallas Zoo is indeed being preyed on by an animal robber, it wouldn’t be the first. Lemurs, exotic birds, and other monkeys have been targeted by thieves in recent years.—SK

Stat: When you develop life-saving treatments during a global pandemic, you’re going to end up making a lot of money. Pfizer’s profits hit a record $100 billion last year—57% of which was accounted for by its Covid vaccine and the antiviral pill Paxlovid. In fact, the combined sales of the vaccine and Paxlovid in 2022 topped Pfizer’s total revenue in 2019. But with Covid not the health emergency it once was, Pfizer warned that demand for both products will crash this year.

Quote: “Episode 3 of Last of Us is unbelievably good story telling. I am in awe of @Nick_Offerman performance. Incredible.”

Jeff Bezos became one of many viewers to heap praise on the third episode of The Last of Us, HBO’s new video game adaptation that has become the talk of Sunday nights. Too bad Bezos’s own streaming service hasn’t produced anything of this caliber…

Read: A look back at Schoolhouse Rock on its 50th birthday. (Washington Post)

Four videos:

• How crabs clean dead skin from toes (NSFW).
• MrBeast helped 1,000 people see again by paying for their cataract surgeries.
• Why the US Army electrifies this water.
• Chuck E. Cheese still uses floppy disks?

Two burning questions: 1) What are they singing? 2) Does nana or mom make the better chicken soup?

Get 93% off a lifetime membership: Save up to $2k on flights for life with Dollar Flight Club! Score flights discounted to 90%, like round-trip to Hawaii from $197. Hurry, offer ends in 24 hours.*

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Word Search: Grab a pocketful of quarters and head to the arcade for today’s Word Search. Play it here.

Name that voice

Carl from Up was voiced by Ed Asner, who died in 2021. He serves as the inspiration for this quiz, which will give you an animated character and ask you to name the actor who voiced them.

1. Mushu in Mulan

2. Meg in Family Guy

3. Mr. Fox in Fantastic Mr. Fox

4. Anastasia in Anastasia

5. Puss in Boots in Puss in Boots

6. Emperor Kuzco in The Emperor’s New Groove

We polled our readers for their thoughts on soaring inflation and how they changed their behaviors in response to it. Check out the results.

Data Storytelling, the Brew’s one-week online course, will teach you how to use data to tell a story, craft visualizations, and monitor real-time problems. Reserve your spot today.

Join CFO Brew for a virtual event discussing how finance departments can stay in control when unpredictable events impact supply chains. Register here.