Photo: Dire Wolf De-extinction

A biotech company used DNA from thousands of years ago to clone three wolf pups that resemble the extinct dire wolf.

Dire wolves went extinct about 12,000 years ago. In April, biotech company Colossal Biosciences announced it had cloned three pups that resemble the long-dead creatures. Scientists used DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull to make 15 key edits to the gray wolf genome and recreate dire wolf traits.

Expected to grow to twice the size of gray wolves, the pups have wider heads, larger jaws, and stronger shoulders. The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation has expressed interest in providing them a habitat in which to roam freely once again.

Comments

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

Perhaps it was good the feather heads extincted these critter 12k years ago. I guess in Baileys view this falls under more testing needed

[diver64]

This always ends in the zombie apocalypse.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

The shark-nado (wolf-nado?) style.

[Vernon Depner]

These are designer dogs. It's not a "de-extinction".

[MasterThief]

I'd also say that calling this "cloning" seems very inaccurate. It is gene editing on a gray wolf to draw out characteristics already possible in their DNA that is similar to that of a direwolf.
It's still cool in a way, but the way it is being marketed feels deceptive. Regardless, doing this has concerning future implications. It isn't just about bringing extinct creatures to life. This process will also be used for directed evolution in a way that works faster and has a higher chance of going wrong than with selective breeding. Honest bioethicists would be screaming about this and the inevitable future applications to the human genome.

[Davy C]

Yeah, and any real environmentalists should be screaming about introducing some weird engineered hybrid into the ecosystem.

I'm suddenly wondering what the business model here is. Do they expect to get paid for this? Is this just a sideline for publicity for whatever their real business is?

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Werewolves?

[charliehall]

Real dire wolves were a part of the ecosystem, and it still hasn't recovered from their extinction and that of other predators such as lions, cheetahs, and sabre toothed cats -- or of prey such as horses and elephants.

[Don't look at me! (Not signed with autopen)]

Real dire wolves were a part of the ecosystem that no longer exists, that’s why they are extinct.

FTFY

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Climate change! But 15,000 year ago. Stupid wolves would not give up their coal mining and big pickups.

[BYODB]

Bailey doesn't give much of a fuck about ethics, he's a transhumanist after all.

A sane person would note this is an engineered creature, not a 'Dire Wolf', and as such releasing it into the wild is a crazy thing to do.

I assume Bailey never watched Gattaca, or if he did he didn't understand that it was a warning.

[MasterThief]

I watched Gattaca in school and didn't appreciate it because I was stuck watching it. That said, years later I reference it often when the concept of human gene editing comes up. It does a good job of describing the first order social impact of such a change.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Dystopian stories were just ahead of their time. They are all right about something we find appalling now, but will accept in another 30 years. It's just a question of time.

If you were alive in the 70s, the idea of being tracked everywhere you go was considered evil. It is evil no more.

[mad.casual]

If you were alive in the 70s, the idea of being tracked everywhere you go was considered evil. It is evil no more.

[Tilts hand] James Bond has been tracking people around and being tracked himself for over 60 yrs. and he's the hero. On the other side, grinding people into highly processed food wafers is still pretty fucking evil.

[Mother's Lament - (Sarc's a Nazi, not even joking)]

These are designer dogs. It's not a "de-extinction"

100% this.

It's not de-extinction and it's not cloning. It's amazing work that they've done with the gene insertions, but the dire wolf hasn't been resurrected.

Dire wolves were also probably a reddish brown color according to paleogenomics. Possibly like the dhole. The company picked white for promotional purposes with the Game of Thrones series in mind according to some of the people on the project.

For the real thing, picture a stockier, grey wolf-like body with the pelage of a dhole and maybe—just maybe—the ear shape of an African hunting dog, but smaller and furrier.

[Think It Through]

Possibly like the dhole.

Is that anything like the a-hole? Do you have to be (biologically) male to have one?

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""These are designer dogs. It's not a "de-extinction""'

Agreed.

Call it the Jurassic Park effect.

[Longtobefree]

Fake Wolves.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Great. Now the retards that are already "reintroducing" wolves in Colorado can have a more ambitious goal: bring back turbo wolves that can easily kill a couple of hikers.

[Jerry B.]

Right.

Will the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation take responsibility if one of their pets goes out of range and predates on someone’s cattle, or perhaps someone?

[Eeyore]

I would support releasing them into D.C. Something tells me that is their ancestral home.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

I keep trying to get a law that requires any activist plan to first be implemented in the activist home territory. So the greenies in Denver and Boulder who voted for wolf reintroduction get them first, in the neighborhood parks, greenbelts, and foothills near their metro homeland.

[mad.casual]

So that JD Vance can be wrong about immigrant dire wolves eating people's cats?

[Roberta]

How dire?

[Don't look at me! (Not signed with autopen)]

It’s a dire situation.

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

Don't murder me

[mad.casual]

Bigger, white, and being introduced to new territory replace/displace/prey upon the native populations. Do you not colonize, bro? That dire.

[LIBtranslator]

Already we are plagued with voir dire. What need for six hundred pounds of sin at a door already kicked in by Income tax and prohibition enforcement looters?

[Mother's Lament - (Sarc's a Nazi, not even joking)]

You're such a fucking moron, Hank.

[SQRLSY]

Hank will sic his police dire wolves on You, Oh PervFected and Mind-Infected, Neglected One! Especially once shit gets out that Ye did SNOT vote for Dear Orange Leader! Never mind that, until the Canshluss happens, You are PervFectly SNOT actually allowed to vote in the REAL sham USA erections!!!

Yes, Ye are in a Dire, Dire bind here, butt don't cum crying to me!!! Why should I cry for You, Oh PervFected One?

[Don't look at me! (Not signed with autopen)]

Unread.

[SQRLSY]

So says the unsnivilized and unsnivilizable sniveler!

[InsaneTrollLogic (Sarcs Kampf mit der Realität)]

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should."
- Ian Malcolm

[SQRLSY]

"Our scientists's regulators were so preoccupied with whether we could attain PervFection in ALL things in ALL ways, that they didn’t stop to think if perhaps UDDERLY PERVFECTED PervFection just MIGHT stand in the way of the (merely) good, ass being the ENEMY of the good that shit is, MOIST ASSuredly and udderly!"
- Poor Little Old Oppressed MEEEE, DEPRIVED of ALL butt The PervFected, Which is few and far between!

[AT]

I'm actually really excited to hunt and kill these two pups.

[mad.casual]

If we're de-extincting species, then we can bring back the Venatio, right?

It's not like breeding hundreds of these things into the wild in order for them to get outcompeted and/or starve to death for generations until they catch up is lots more humane.

[Azathoth!!]

Everyone understands that Jurassic Park was just a book, right?

That we actually know how to handle big animals?

That we operate safari parks like Jurassic Park where people drive THEIR OWN cars through prides of lions and herds of elephants and rhinos?

That the inept idiocy we see in JP is plot?

[mad.casual]

That the inept idiocy we see in JP is plot?

Yes plot, but, I think you underestimate the abundance and hubris of people who've never touched grass and/or are certain they can save the planet.