Colossal Bioscience did not revive dire wolves, despite a sensationalist Time Magazine cover story. Making genetically modified animals that are cosplaying as extinct species is not de-extinction. - ThreadSky

jacquelyngill.bsky.social • 17 hours ago

Colossal Bioscience did not revive dire wolves, despite a sensationalist Time Magazine cover story.

Making genetically modified animals that are cosplaying as extinct species is not de-extinction.

Reposted from Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️

Dire wolves were not close relatives of gray wolves. They last shared a common ancestor more than 5 million years ago. What Colossal has done is make something new and slapped a dire wolf sticker on it, as if an organism equals a hypothetical genome.

Comments

bederatliff.bsky.social•7 hours ago

Why revive any animal that went extinct because no habitat or food chain exists to sustain them anymore? Will they be giant lab rats, or put on public display, or live their lives overheated in some sanctuary in a semi-domesticated misery? I don't see any other future for them

mns71.bsky.social•1 hour ago

Tinkering with genes and extinct creatures is not a good idea..
It is 2025 after all. and #TrumpTheRabidRapist is in the WH..

Felt like mentioning that.

echo-too.bsky.social•10 hours ago

And, uh, how do they know they were white? Seems like a bad choice in a predator.

valymonahan.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Many modern wolves are white/almost white. In the far north, where snow is on the ground for most of the year and the landscape is treeless, it is an excellent choice. We have no idea what colour dire wolves were, though.

echo-too.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Yes, modern wolves. Dire wolves didn't evolve in the tundra. They were temperate animals. Remember the La Brea tar pits?

valymonahan.bsky.social•9 hours ago

You said "in a predator", suggesting that it is never a good choice. It's a fine choice for some predators.

semsombra.bsky.social•11 hours ago

É Jurassic Park,o livro.

greyauk.bsky.social•16 hours ago

📌

whitefluffydog.bsky.social•11 hours ago

One thing I've never seen answered by these sensationalist pr campaigns is what does "bringing an extinct animal back" even mean? Their environment no longer exists, they're social animals who no longer have other to learn from, they can't just be let loose. They'd just be glorified exhibits.

incompletemachine.bsky.social•11 hours ago

One might charitably argue that simply re-creating the species is to render it no longer extinct, but your point is a sound one. If the niche no longer exists then it would just be a living museum exhibit. I feel like the capability is worth pursuing as a backup for the current ecosystem.

bederatliff.bsky.social•7 hours ago

And don't tell me companies aren't dreaming of herds of mammoths raised for meat

billstewart.bsky.social•9 hours ago

There are animals we could probably bring back if we had the tech - passenger pigeons, for instance, could still find an ecological niche. Maybe dodos.
Predators are a lot tougher, because they need prey and habitat range; it's tough enough to be allowed to bring wolves and buffalo back at all.

iamlazarusjones.bsky.social•4 hours ago

HAS THERE BEEN NO RETENTION OF SCIENCE FICTION OF THE PAST 150+ YEARS FOR WHAT A POINTLESS MISTAKE THIS WILL BE?!

teknomantik.old-home.net•11 hours ago

I feel like Michael Crichton deserves some blame here.

mremington.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Proabably end up manufacturing these new breeds that will end up roaming some whack jobs compound to be hunted.

walkingonascream.bsky.social•10 hours ago

George R R Martin funding the creation of white wolves instead of of finishing the Winds of Winter is so funny to me.

matthewspalmer.bsky.social•11 hours ago

I kind of feel like stuff like like this and Nuralink are the early waves of biotechnology being the next big tech grift when AI has shot it's load.

lemurdreamer87.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Colossal Bioscience has been giving me scam vibes for a while now.

bklynmichael42.bsky.social•11 hours ago

Creating bigger wolves that are not actual Dire Wolves does not, somehow, comfort me.

wyverewings.bsky.social•14 hours ago

It’s also frustrating because it’s probably much easier and better for conservation to bring back much more recently extinct animals, especially invertebrates and small vertebrates, but they wouldn’t be flashy enough to focus on.

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•12 hours ago

Even the article in Time admits these aren't actually dire wolves: "The scientists then rewrote the 14 key genes in the cell’s nucleus to match those of the dire wolf; no ancient dire wolf DNA was actually spliced into the gray wolf’s genome."

It's a gray wolf with some gene editing.

michellekelly21.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Thank you! Unfortunately that business is in my town. I'm just a citizen scientist in the herpetology and paleontology fields, but get asked all the time for more information by students and teachers. I look to you for guidance.

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•12 hours ago

They are selling you de-extinction but are creating genetically modified animals with some traits of an unrelated extinct species. And the description of how it was done--of planned C-sections, and removing the pups from their dog surrogate mother because she became "too attentive" makes me ill.

monscience.bsky.social•12 hours ago

Rough. That sounds like a plot from dystopian sci-fi

muttsylvania.bsky.social•12 hours ago

I share your abhorrence and disgust for these science villains.

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•12 hours ago

There are some people there I respect, but the ways in which this science is being misrepresented to the public for PR purposes is wrong. And I have serious questions about the ethics and purpose of creating animals who can't live in the wild.

muttsylvania.bsky.social•7 hours ago

"creating animals"--my main religious belief, aside from the Golden Rule, is "don't play God." The entire enterprise, though there may be some purpose to this kind of experimentation I'm too un-science-y to understand, sounds awful. Animals are beings, not things.

carlosariza.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Ray Nayler's The Tusks of Extinction is a good read on what that future could look like :/

brachinus.bsky.social•12 hours ago

it’s animal cruelty, for sure, and no goddamn reason to do it other than greed

drkiki.bsky.social•5 hours ago

This part of it is barbaric. How are they being raised? By people dressed like dire wolves?

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•12 hours ago

I have devoted my life to ice age ecosystems, and I feel an acute responsibility to tell the stories of extinct species and to help people to know them better. To see this work being done with such a casual disregard not only for the truth but for life itself is genuinely abhorrent to me.

mmkeefe.bsky.social•12 hours ago

I keep thinking about the
movie Jurassic Park and I think we should leave some stuff alone 🤔

fodongophon.bsky.social•12 hours ago

That movie aged surprisingly well, and yes, you’re right. Just leave them pups alone.

charleyinma.bsky.social•12 hours ago

We hear you.

talos-xliv.bsky.social•9 hours ago

👍👍

jeffthecheff.bsky.social•10 hours ago

In my mind, such an article harms science more than a thousand Theranos cases. Incredibly shameful.

kateelliottsff.bsky.social•12 hours ago

thank you

aerliss.bsky.social•10 hours ago

And these same people want to use elephants? May have mourning rituals, matriarchal society, long gestation and infancy, bring their babies to meet their human carers if they were orphaned & raised by humans elephants?

Absolutely not.

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•10 hours ago

Yup.

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•17 hours ago

I'm not splitting hairs about definitions here, or trying to be a killjoy. It's important to get this right, because conservation is not just a matter of aesthetics.

It's possible to share breakthroughs in gene editing technology without misrepresenting the science just to raise venture capital.

stephencoxauthor.bsky.social•17 hours ago

I don't see the companies paying for stunts considering the ethics for the welfare of the hybrid creatures.

suw.bsky.social•17 hours ago

You hit the nail on the head though – this is all about raising venture capital, and nothing at all about conservation.

bleuz00m.bsky.social•12 hours ago

Precisely. Thank you.

amberying.com•16 hours ago

Indeed! There is actual recent progress in gene editing technology that saves lives!!

bleuz00m.bsky.social•12 hours ago

Thank you for this. I suspect my brother may be AAT Deficient. Am looking into this. Fascinating backgrounder ^ NIH:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK442030/

peterjwagner3.bsky.social•17 hours ago

Isn't a Dire Wolf an oversized fox, anyway?

tinselfire.bsky.social•59 minutes ago

Don't quote me on this, but if I recall right the closest living relatives (not descendants) are maned wolves and bush dogs. Which are themselves closer related to South American foxes, which in turn are not vulpine foxes but their own thing.

It's complicated, but in either case they aren't wolves.

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•17 hours ago

They were their own branch of canid, evolving in North America separately from wolves, which had a Eurasian origin and are a relative newcomer to North America.

beatrizdiniz.bsky.social•12 hours ago

@leandrobarbosa.bsky.social chega aqui, mano

hmmmbuzz.bsky.social•11 hours ago

So Musk’s AI company in TN is named Colossal. Is this his company also ?

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•11 hours ago

No, it’s a different company.

hmmmbuzz.bsky.social•11 hours ago

Oh good, then, I will read the article. Thanks

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