The Dire Wolf, an Extinct Canine that Roamed Prehistoric America, Has Been Resurrected
thedebrief.org
The dire wolf has been resurrected in a remarkable achievement by Texas-based biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences.

While not the gigantic uber-canines of fantasy lore, these pups will become roughly-gray-wolf-sized dire wolves, and represent the first de-extincted animal species, raising a number of ethical questions about returning animals to ecosystems that may not be stable for long.

  • egrets@lemmy.worldEnglish
    38·
    19 days ago

    You were right the first time - they’re CRISPR-edited gray wolves engineered to exhibit the physical traits they found in dire wolf DNA.

    There’s an 80-gene difference between dire wolves and gray wolves, and they’ve modified 14 of what they felt to be the most variant differences.

    It’s still fascinating and tremendously difficult, and probably the best we can hope for in a very long time, but I don’t feel Colossal are being totally honest in their presentation.

    • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.mlEnglish
      12·
      19 days ago

      Damn. You’re right. Those journalists were sneaky slipping in this quote and not challenging/clarifying it:

      “We took a 13,000-year-old tooth, and a 74,000-year-old skull, and we made puppies,” Lamm told The Debrief.