[acdcguy]

De-extinction company Colossal Bioscience made famous for announcing their plans to revive serval extinct species including the Wooly Mammoth, the Dodo, and Thylacine; and who have went viral just about a month ago for producing "wooly mice" - mice genetically enhanced with the genes that make mammoths cold resistant - has claimed today to have revived the extinct canid species known as the Dire Wolf. These American canids were six-food long, 200 pound, robust pack hunters known to have taken down mammoths and mastodons during Pleistocene and disappeared roughly 12,000 years ago.

Colossal Bioscience used gene editing technology to edit the genes of a Gray Wolf to reflect the phenotypes of a Dire Wolf. Thus it is not a full species revival, but to be treated technically as a Gray Wolf x Dire Wolf hybrid, but should look exactly as what a true Dire Wolf would have looked like. The Dire Wolf pups include two males named Romulus and Remus, and a female named Khaleesi were born to a domestic dog surrogate. The mother had to undergo c-section due the size of the Dire Wolf pups. This same technology is being used to help increase the population of Red Wolves.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...of-Dire-Wolves

[Mesnick]

Interesting. So Jurassic Park became reality someday?

[acdcguy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mesnick

Interesting. So Jurassic Park became reality someday?

We are far from a Jurassic Park reality, but we will likely see a Pleistocene Park in our lifetime. Colossal Bioscience plans to revive species such as the wooly mammoth, the dodo, the thylacine, and many others that have went extinct in the past 20,000 years. That is if we have the genetic material to do so.

It should be noted that these current individuals are only a partial revival. They are gray wolves that have been modified to look, act, and sound like dire wolves. Colossal does plan to revive the species with their exact genome in the near future. Here is another source that explains more:

https://www.wired.com/story/scientis...olf-deextinct/

That said, could we eventually have a Jurassic Park? It is probable now. These dire wolves were created by editing gray wolf genetics. No actual dire wolf genetic material was used in the cloning process. Once AI technology advances further than it already has, it could, in theory, decode the genomes of avians and crocodilians and sequence hypothetical genomes to re-create the entire genomes of extinct archosaurs. Once a genome has been determined to be analogous to a specific extinct species, then the genetic material of their closest living relative could be edited to resemble the extinct species and a surrogate would be selected to carry the egg.

For example, if one wanted to revive a velociraptor, then you could edit the genes of a cassowary and then have a rhea or an emu serve as a surrogate. What would hatch would be a near identical match to the extinct velociraptor, to the best ability AI could muster without having any genetic material from a velociraptor to reference. We are in untested waters with this scientific achievement and the can of worms of de-extinction has been opened.

The scariest aspect of this announcement is Colossal never disclosed they were working on de-extincting dire wolves. Just like in Jurassic Park, InGen never disclosed their clone of the Spinosaurus. This is a private company just like InGen possesses the most powerful technology known to man and wields it like a kid who just found his dad's gun. What else are they working on that the public doesn't know about?

[Sunred]

Dang, that is crazy. Isn't the woolly mammoth being looked into as well?

[Mesnick]

Yes, in fact, the consequences can be quite significant. That is, for now these are all experiments with a small number of individuals, but what if the process is put on stream? As they wrote in one of the articles: "We don't know if there is a place for today's wolves in the modern world, and here they are bringing back wolves from the past?"
Also, I think it's only a matter of time and morality when it comes to using resultats on people. It's one thing to alter genes so as to completely eliminate hereditary and congenital diseases, as well as any malignant mutations. But sooner or later, some crazy scientist will come up with the idea of ​​recreating someone from the past.

[acdcguy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunred

Dang, that is crazy. Isn't the woolly mammoth being looked into as well?

Yes they are working on reviving the mammoth. They expect to have the first batch by 2028.